Waiting for God

 A favourite serial that my husband and I watched years ago now. I think it was just after Edward retired as I was still working and setting aside time for the show was a priority in my mind since he enjoyed watching it so much. He loved being retired; he was so much better at it than I was although I was pretty busy mostly because of all of his activities. I did have plans for retirement - I was going to watch the videos that I had purchased through the years and they numbered in the thousands and now we have none because we gave them all to Salvation Army. I think that giving them items which they can resell is good; it gives purchasing power to many people who would struggle to pay the full price and yet they have stuff too. Some things though cannot be recycled quite so readily like the tomato support cages which were getting rusty - when the boy asked for them I assumed he would bring his parents back to check them out since he seemed to want them but didn't take them with him. When I brought the garbage can in yesterday morning they were gone so assume they have picked them up. 

They were there earlier when I took out the recyclable food waste. I like to take my frozen food waste out in the morning so that it stays frozen part way through the day in the heat. Mind you I only have about one 2 litre milk container full a week. In the winter I eat mostly frozen vegetable or leave the skins on like potatoes etc when I cook them in my favourite chicken stew. My other activities planned for my retirement included smocking dresses to sell at the Church Bazaar at Christ Church Cathedral as well as knitting little sweaters, hats and booties for babies. My grandmother had done that and she made lovely sweater/legging sets for baskets that went to northern communities in Canada (I think that was the Salvation Army; my uncle was quite active in the Salvation Army). Instead in 2003 my cousin George DeKay asked me to write a Profile for my Pincombe family to put into the Westminster/Delaware History Book and completely changed the direction of my retirement as it turned out. Watching/helping Edward find information on his early American ancestors (most arrived in the 1600s) had not led me to do the same with my ancestors mostly because I knew who many of them were and it wasn't really until the use of DNA to look at male and female (yDNA and mtDNA) lines that my interest perked up. I was interested in my deep ancestry for sure. Most of my concentration is in DNA for my lines with four of my six siblings and myself tested at pretty much every testing service some here and some there but not in every for all five of us except FT DNA.

Yesterday, I vacuumed the basement collecting up all the dog hair until the next time. Although they do not come very often. This was a special twelve day stay and I must admit it was not easy for me in my old age to look after two large dogs. But they were good and helpful; always lifting their feet up to be washed and dried. They ate very well and slept very well. Their running competitions in the yard were fun to watch. The one dog is seven and the other is three I think but still considered a pup in her breed. 

I am into the 9th generation now with the Siderfin Family and in total I did 12 generations and will not take this companion book beyond the 12th generation either. We are into census and other tools so one should be able to get back to the 12th generation fairly readily.  

Other than that this is the last day of August and it is raining so I guess I will not do more bricks in the laneway today. Too bad but gardening is not a favourite task. I will be spending a lot of time though out there clearing away but mostly I will leave all the foliage to rot under the snow as that worked very well last year but there will be some that goes. I am realizing now that I moved my desk about a metre further away from the window which does make it look like the sky is less visible; forgot that. Really another year in this vantage point the sky will be covered by trees out this window if I am still here that is. I love the trees but it is also wonderful to see the sky. The wind blowing slightly in the trees tells us God is near watching and wondering will Homo sapiens ever find peace. I think so many of us want that it is a blight on the existence of Homo sapiens to have some people (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis funded by Iran and Russia trying to steal Ukraine) who make constant trouble in the world purely for selfish reasons  especially for money. 

Breakfast completed; Latin completed and I appear to be staying in the promotion zone to go to the Diamond League. I actually preferred the Obsidian League but we will see if I can stay in the Diamond League this time. I have used a different style of learning from my first time into Duolingo - I bought a membership as well which I think is very helpful. Certainly worth the $95.99 (Canadian) over a twelve month period. Just a quarter a day really to learn Latin and I will soon start reviewing my French and particularly my conversational. I am looking forward to that plus it will help me with my son in law's genealogy which goes back to the very beginnings of the French settlements in North America.

Busy these days writing the Companion charting book. I am into the seventh generation now

 I have been busy writing these days, actually updating the Legacy file which will do all the writing. Just five generations to complete. Some of the data is in there but not all of it. Plus I am adding in some notes. Found two small errata so will eventually write it up and add it to the companion book. They are pretty obvious; missed them though but in 412 pages I would be surprised not to find a couple. Hard to proofread your own stuff. 

Chatting with my brother last evening for a few minutes. He is ten years younger than me and with two of my brothers deceased now and the other brother is not on Facebook any longer, I mostly talk to my youngest brother and my two sisters occasionally. We are all busy doing our being old. 

Someone asked for my tomato support tool that I put into recycling and I said "all yours" and will have some more later - in two weeks or next year. Some of them are already in the shed and I am not going to unearth them until spring. Although they are handy our plants simply do not grow as much now; the earth is really worked out after 46 years of gardening. 

The bulk of material left in the house is files of my husband which I do want to organize and make sure that no original material is lost. Seventy nine in a couple of weeks and I did say ten years ago that the end of my seventies would see me writing and compacting my research and so it is happening. I can see myself still doing another ten years but it will be directed towards closing down my research activities as I write each book. My cousin George DeKay certainly did send me on a long work project. It started in 2003 and twenty one years later I continue in writing mode. This house suits that really now that I have looked around a bit. I liked the street from the time that I first saw it over 46 years ago. It was brand new then with just the first set of carriage homes built. Edward traveled more in those days and it was something that I could manage; this house. Although it is starting to be a lot of work but I shall try to manage it and if not I will move on into something that I can manage. But the pressure in my mind to do so was a need to downsize more and more and a lot of that happened this summer. 

Cleaning accomplished; floors all washed with the special liquid for laminate/linoleum/hardwood. It does very well actually. I had expected the floors to be very dirty with the dogs but actually not at all as it turned out. 

Today the basement just to vacuum up the dog's hair. One of the dog sheds a great deal and that was mostly what I captured today hidden under and behind everything. There will also be piles of it in the basement. 

On to breakfast and then Latin.

Continued to think through moving in the spring

Although in many ways I would like to move in the spring into a smaller place looking around with the excellent help of a realtor when I queried a property he has shown me that I am not yet ready to do that. It isn't even replacing what I already have that is uppermost in my mind. It is that this summer we have managed to set this house up so that I can easily work on projects in different areas and everything I need to do that is at my fingertips in the right area. I can easily lose myself for weeks at a time now working on individual projects and that is what I need to do. Moving would disrupt what is now a perfect setup. There is some work being done on the house as well to repair a sloppy roofing job fifteen years ago where the roof tiles are still in good shape relatively speaking and I do not want to help fill the landfill areas with shingles that still have another ten years in them. I also have fencing being done for sure in the next couple of weeks. That will be very nice as the wooden fences are both rundown after 45 years. They have done well in actual fact. Perhaps the new neighbours on the one side will not like lilies and take them out so that would help my daughter to be able to be outside more when she is here. I think I am looking at moving in the future but not this spring. Once I have downsized all of this paper then moving becomes the next step.  I can see that now but there was just too much stuff still for me to really get my head around everything. Having six big items we did not use removed made a huge difference - treadmill, large overstuffed chair, fake wooden fireplace (large), queen sized bed, shed in a box and a large garden swing. We just didn't use any of them and I was cleaning them every week. What a difference it has made. I did acquire a day bed in case of company from my daughter but I can use it for sorting so is perfect. The queen bed was just too large to use as a sorting table. Plus it took up twice as much room. The basement takes me just two hours to clean now instead of five or six. We reorganized the house completely and compacted everything into sole use areas where that was applicable. I still do have a lot of dishes although I have also taken many of them to Salvation Army. I want to get down to a basic level of dishes because I never entertain except for my close family and I have more than sufficient dishes for that. I have a lot of gimmicky cooking devices that Edward loved to use for specific dishes and some of them are now gone and more of them will go. I just do not do that much meat cooking. I am not a foodie; I literally eat to live not live to eat!

That being said a lot of the work that needs to be done is Edward's material. We now have all of the tree material back on line on the website that had been on World Connect which was a relief. But I need to look at what I have done because I want it to be available so that anyone can utilize it and I may have used too restrictive a publication license. Need to check that. I still have about 25 boxes of his material to work on and over 50 binders of pictures to go through. That will be this fall and winter's work but I also want to continue writing my books. In between I need to do my favourite exercises to stay fit and healthy. So I do have my organizational skills which I must continue to hone to get the most results out of my work. 

Breakfast completed and this week I did not clean Monday and Tuesday so I am vacuuming today and washing the floors to clear away the dog's prints although they were actually really good and I was able to clean them up after every trip out to the yard. Latin next and then cleaning. 

Worked on the laneway edges

I usually clear away the weeds in the bricks that line the laneway a few times in the summer but that didn't happen quite so regularly this year. I did get started yesterday and will work away at it over the next few days. One of these days I will likely get the laneway repaved as it is looking somewhat older; like me I suppose! Still have to decide what to do about the siding which Edward painted. I was still working then and it just sort of suddenly happened that the siding became a dark brown. However the paint needs to be either redone or the original colour restored. That is somewhat up in the air so to speak!

A little work yesterday on my Ancestry Project. I have two atDNA tests for myself about ten years apart. The matches are pretty much the same with tiny differences where they are no longer testing as many points in some areas probably. They are tiny changes of no consequence. But I wanted to look at the individuals that have been matched up with us and put them into my colour coded index that I established a long time ago for the larger matches where a shared ancestor is known and stated. There are several hundred of them in the 5th to 8th cousin matches. I completed that and everyone of them was given a colour code and now the project will be to look at the different matches within these family lines and see if I can learn anything new. Because I have my excel chart of the  1031 matches up to 4th cousin, I can easily use that to look at my siblings matches to these groups of people. I actually have 580 matches within my kit up to the 4th cousin matches and all these other matches are from the accounts of my siblings where one of them is the "largest" match to the individual and I may or may not match but it is less than or 20 cM (other sibling matches include 169 for the 1st sibling, 109 for the second sibling and 173 for the third sibling). The other siblings also match in the same way as I do these "other" matches. It is slanted of course in my direction because I am the first person in the chart and in a number of cases the other siblings are the larger match but since I match more than 20 cM then it is recorded first in my list. Knowing the bias I am cautious how I use the results of course. It is more likely that this is more evenly distributed than it looks but knowing the bias means I use it with that bias in my mind. 

 Today I want to continue with the Siderfin Project and get that charting going as it will take me likely a month or so to create the companion book. I need to work on the Newsletters for Kipp and Pincombe as well. I have a couple other side projects that I can always turn to if I feel that my other projects need a break. It does look like rain so I may not be able to do a length of the laneway but time will tell. 

October will be the month to actually clear away debris in the gardens and will do that just a couple of hours per day in preparation for winter. Although I had thought we would move in the spring I do not think it will happen before a year from now. We are not quite ready to leave and will take this extra time to continue the downsizing which must occur before we do move. We can not take all of this with us even yet. I can scarcely believe how much has come out of this house. I know when I worked the last four years after Edward retired that he accumulated a lot of items that he always wanted and didn't have time to buy when he was working. He enjoyed them all and that is what is important I think. Someone else is enjoying many of them now as most of them went to Salvation Army with my neighbours picking up items that I put out as well. Even the shed in a box has now gone that housed so much stuff initially. The shed that Edward and our daughters built is no longer stuffed to the gunwales but easily holds the two kayaks and a lot of other stuff that we may not take with us. The gardening implements we may just leave in the shed although will ask whomever buys it whether or not they want to have them. As we could just dispose of them. 

Israel has rescued another hostage from Gaza. Wonderful news yesterday. Still over a hundred people missing from that barbaric raid into Israel by Hamas 7th October last in captivity. Not likely seeing the light of day very often as the Israelis would see them and take them home. How cruel Hamas; how satanic to have killed so many Israeli children, women and men and put so many Palestinian children in harm's way by their bloody barbaric attack on Israel. All the deaths in Gaza are the fault of Hamas and their adherents; those people who celebrated the attack on Israel last 7th October share equal blame for encouraging Hamas. 

Russia continues their illegal attacks on Ukraine trying to gobble up land in their greedy way. We need an end to war; to greed; to hunger because of greed; to sickness because of greed. Life can only flourish where there is peace; respect for all peoples. 

Breakfast completed and on to my research for a bit, then Latin, working outside and exercise.

Whoosh, August nearly over

 This was a very fast moving month. The dogs being here for twelve days was certainly part of that. They kept me busy and the baby was especially busy and had her trial with the large dog just two doors up. She went from fear to being preemptive and then it was time to go home. She is a character. I got very little done with the dogs here although one day I did do four hours work which was surprising. It was raining and they were especially missing their family and the combination meant two sad dogs sleeping on the red blanket on my bed on and off for that part of the day when I worked. 

Another load off to Salvation Army although my neighbours and passerbys did take quite a bit as well. That was great news. It is getting down now all this stuff that I have; just various things like four lengths of quarter round never used. A platform for painting, a workbench (Edward had at least four portable work benches) and other items now in new homes. When does it end? I could never accumulate this amount of stuff on my own but then I am not a shopper. Edward was a great helper for the economy for sure. But he liked to have everything that he could. Just never did find a house that satisfied him mostly because of the yard and of course some things are too expensive!

Slowly I am getting back to work; to thinking about all of the items that I want to concentrate on. I am a multi-tasker so working on more than one thing is not a problem for me. I do have a couple of projects now in process and will continue with them. It does look like October before I am into the Blake and Pincombe books to any degree though. 

Working outside will be a priority as I clear away more of the weeds and the plants that are finished. I am mostly just going to chop them down and let them lie on the ground to rot through the fall back into the earth. Regenerative gardening does work I think but takes a lot of time. But overall I would rather not garden a great amount so grass goes in instead. 

Breakfast completed and I may do my Latin once again early. I like to do it early as it generally means that I can get in two work periods a day then on Latin. This past month has been a disaster for my Latin and I missed my first day in 225 days since I restarted my Latin learning. Just couldn't manage it that day. 

Having my daughter looking after me during her summer research break after my cataract surgery was wonderful and so easy for me. I have greatly appreciated her taking the time to do so out of her busy research schedule. My eyes have only ever been my consistent weakness throughout my life and amazingly I can now see without glasses and read the road signs. Not having to wear glasses except when I am driving (my bifocals) or working on the computer or reading is really interesting. The depth of vision most interesting of all perhaps although I have gotten very used to that very quickly I must admit. When I look at the depth of the yard I realize the change but otherwise I have really adjusted remarkably to the upgrade on the eyes! Thanks to the surgeon who did the work. I met him just once in his office and then two times for surgery; I would have loved to discuss some of the changes but was it really needed by me; no, it would have been an extraneous appointment and the new optometrist I do quite like. He is quick and efficient. As a process it worked very well with just a few hiccups at the beginning due to my need to have a surgery within a narrow timeframe. That would not likely be the case for very many people but my good eye being operated on did indeed necessitate my needing to have 100% care for about one week in total and even the weaker eye I did really need a number of days of 100% care (perhaps five). The rest of the time was just lucky for me to have my daughter doing her research break here as it let me gradually recover and at nearly 79 that was a more necessary part really in retrospect. I am back to driving and it is nice to be able to read the road signs readily.

Bible Readings from the Old Testament

Principally the Bible Readings for the last few days have been talking about the Jewish people in the lands which they occupied for thousands of years; the land which God gave to them according to the Bible. I think there is a need on the part of Homo sapiens to ensure that history not be toyed with by people for their own nefarious purposes like Hamas like the Russians the two main problems at the moment. What is is what is and can not be changed. History must be true and then people will have a much better understanding of what is happening in the world especially the attacks by basically nomads (Hamas funded by Iran as well as Hezbollah and the Houthis) trying to steal by threat and terror what belongs to the Israeli people. 

Yesterday the shed was completely emptied and cleaned in preparation for winter - a yearly happening. My kayak is now in the shed along with the implements of gardening for the most part. This year we got rid of a lot more stuff and everything will fit into the shed with room to spare which is nice to see. Really just the second kayak and the lawn mower left to put in and the second kayak will go in very soon. The shed is in good shape. My husband and daughters did a great job building it over twenty years ago now. 

My job now is to work through all the paperwork and find a home for the original items hopefully the Ontario Archives which will be my first approach for these early Oxford/Brant settlers. I also want to prepare all the material that Edward had for the building of Orleans United Church - he created a lovely picture album but I need to go through it and create a front page for it. We have gone through all the VHS tapes and they are ready to give to them - some of the early services that he taped or were taped. 

Other than that I continue with my projects left hanging by my cataract surgery namely the Companion Charting to the Siderfin Book, then my new books one for Blake and one for Pincombe. I also have some Powerpoint presentations to create from sets of images. Edward's thesis to scan and put up on the website along with other material that we worked on together years and years ago - wild flowers in northern Ontario for one and a couple of other projects. Some of those areas have been burned over through the fifty years since so the images might be interesting. 

Today would usually be a cleaning day but we rushed to do the shed yesterday since the day was better than predicted so will take a couple of days off to rest from all that activity. I am getting older. The bikes are hung in the shed and they never made it onto the street this year. Maybe next year.  House hunting does appear to be rather complicated not having done it for 45 years. As I settle into winter once again I think I will not really look at it until spring comes once again. My cataract surgery left me somewhat vulnerable but now that that recovery is completed and the year of gardening has ended I think perhaps I overdid the whole idea and should look at it again in the spring. There isn't any rush because we have once again downsized items that just seemed to complicate my life. I am still over burdened with written material that I have to sort through but that is organized for me to do so. Time is forever on my side for the moment whilst I am well enough to manage everything. Plus I do have family much closer to me now than was the case a year ago at this time. So patience as there just isn't any rush. This year I shall cut everything down and leave it to rot through the winter into the ground. In the spring I shall just weed. The garden really doesn't work out very well as the trees are blocking all the sun pretty much and the market is close by to obtain fresh vegetables so will settle for that. It will give me more time to work on downsizing the boxes that I still have to go through that was Edwards for the most part. So that is settled in my mind not to think about it until spring. I think a condo is a better idea for sure.  More downsizing until then and I am much better organized with the boxes to be more effective at that.

 

Pleased with work done

 I was very pleased to complete a task that I dabbled away at since just before my first surgery. I generally extract my matches from ancestry for myself and my three siblings and put them into an electronic file that I then use to pull out the information from Ancestry and list them in a matches file that now has 1043 entries. It has been an interesting file letting me look at these Ancestry matches without actually knowing exactly where I am matching except when an individual tester takes their results into FT DNA, My Heritage or Living DNA where I do learn the actual match. But the subsequent chart lets me look at the Shared matches and place them (where the trees are a great help) into my different family lines. Corresponding with individuals has led to interesting conversations. Ancestry has charted a different path and it has proven to be very successful for them and for looking at 6th cousins or less. I tend to ignore the smaller matches than that and mostly my cut off is 25 cM in one length although with Ancestry using TIMBER and comparisons with individual matches does show me that sometimes an Ancestry match is actually larger than it shows. But it is the way that all four of us match that is the most interesting for sure. A task that sat in waiting for about four months as the Chart to locate them grew longer and longer. Generally this list is just a dozen or less names but this time there were 38 matches that I was looking at with just 26 fitting my criteria of 25 cm or more but I do extract all of them. The matches (looking at all four siblings) are becoming somewhat predictable when it is myself and one particular sibling matching an individual person. 

The dogs have returned to their family and were very happy to do so although I must admit the older dog looked at me somewhat sadly when she left; the baby never looked back but I have been strict with her. 

Sunday and Church on YouTube but we must do some work today since we lost time to the dogs being here with us. The fence must come down around the garden. We were going to do that whilst they were here but it rained so much and all that tracking in would have been astronomical for sure. It was a good call on our part to wait. The sunflowers are now blooming and there will likely be thirty or more flowers for the squirrels to share around for their winter feed. 

Breakfast; I am very hungry. Slept in somewhat today but it was still 6:30 when I awoke but have spent a little time working on a couple of items.

A bit of excitement

 The dogs are busy and a discovery was made because of them. The mice/rats which took up habitation next door a month or so ago were dead I thought I understood as they were trapped or poisoned - no idea which but apparently that was not the case. A very thin mouse/rat appeared on our feeder a couple of days ago so I scared it off and removed everything from the feeders (both of them). It seems sad but then we noticed that she had had young as a tiny newborn mice/rat was seen so she simply hid in her burrow and had her young and has now emerged but they are afraid of the dogs and stay out of the yard. They actually have to eat the poisoned food and perhaps she did not; plus it is usual for them to just nurse their newborns for a couple of weeks and she was very plump before. I am sure there are mice/rats around but generally one doesn't see them close to houses unless there is a lot of cover as they do not want to be picked up by hawks. The hawks have been hovering about which isn't easy with all the tree cover but they tend to do that here anyway. We likely will move in the spring; still looking at doing that. There is too much work to do. 

The end of dog sitting is in sight and it has been an interesting experience. The summer is drawing to a close and I must get things organized for that. 

Latin all done finally and I completed a project I started yesterday. I want to get back into my work next week but also need to clean up the yard.

Although dogs are sweet they do occupy time

 My blog seems to get later and later every day. The girls were up early this morning at 6:30 a.m. with breakfast at 7:00 a.m. and then out for a run at 8:00 a.m. They spent about half of an hour outside. It was a cool 14 degrees but they loved it out there. Up and down the yard they ran enjoying what I most enjoy the wind blowing around me. They are a very happy pair of dogs perfectly bonded. The older one guiding the younger one and has managed to calm her quite a bit over the time period. She is a wise dog at nearly 8 years of age. Between the two of them they outweigh me so I do not walk them alone as I am not used to walking them. They have had a fun time though and behaved very well. Just a couple of incidents of the baby barking when she was frightened by the larger dog two doors down. 

A beautiful sunny day today leading to a beautiful weekend apparently. The dogs are asleep for the moment on my red blanket which they remember from when I stayed with them. I think they think of it as their blanket!

I can not see myself owning a dog though; they are a lot of work and I have accomplished very little the past few days. 

The world news passes by me quickly and one hopes for peace in our time in memory of all those lives lost in WWI and WWII and the Korean War. Such sad times in our parent's lives as they watched the youth of this country go to war in Europe and Asia. As my mother said it was the saddest thing in her life to see their friends lost in the war. My brother older but next to me in age was named after one of their friends. He was so young. 

Exercise time.

Cold and rainy

 The end of August approaches with its unpredictable weather; the dog is barking early. A car parked in front of the house at 6:20 a.m. and got the puppy going but soon settled once again. Breakfast at 7:00 a.m. and then out for a good run at 8:00 a.m. and now settled in for a snooze. My mornings are always early but I do not get very much done at the moment. Dogs are a lot of work although they are very comfortable companions I can see that. 

Yesterday not a lot accomplished although I did do some work on the Siderfin charting. It will probably take me the better part of one month to work all of that up and then I will publish it as a companion book to the revised book. I have spent most of the summer recovering from eye surgery for cataracts. Not that I needed all that recovery time but I decided it would benefit my eyes not to strain them and just let them be like a child's eyes and rest and relax as I enjoyed the world of God around me. It has been an interesting and rather lazy summer on my part. The weeds can testify to that for sure. 

Thank you God for the bounty of the earth and all that is in it. We must do more to protect the earth. All of these people who have made fortunes especially during the followup to the pandemic should really think about how to green the entire planet not just the space around them. They may think that they can organize the world around them but would they always choose to live in that small area in a fishbowl because in reality they do. One wonders; children certainly prosper only when the world around them is free.

Today my latin; it has definitely suffered the last two weeks as I generally did it first thing in the morning and generally it is noon now before I do my latin. The dogs are lying on my bed on the red blanket that they love and falling asleep. They had a good couple of runs outside but really do need that 5K that they do with their family. They are big strong dogs and I know that it would not be fair of me to try to take them for a walk or a run. At nearly 79 I love to run but it is my pace not theirs for sure. 

Breakfast accomplished and now some time on research. One of the top things on my mind that I need to organize are the Kipp pictures of the Isaac Kipp family of Oxford County, Ontario and Brant County, Ontario. They arrived in October of 1800 originally from Northeast Town in Dutchess County, New York. Hannah (Mead) Kipp was the daughter of a revolutionary soldier Jonathan Mead the Cooper III but Isaac's parents remain unknown for sure positively but there are a couple of interesting people but I will leave all that research to others. I do not have in depth knowledge of the Kipp family other than what Edward produced for his book in the mid 1970s (published in 1976) and there are copies in the major repositories that he gave them to. Was he finished with the Kipp family then; absolutely not he was just beginning really but wanted to produce a book of what he had found in his first decade of searching. The rest is online and remains that way as he never republished the book. I typed it actually and it was one of my jobs when I was home raising my first child (to me work is work whether it is within my family or not!). So that part I am familiar with but all the work since less so unless I did the research for him in our travels when my interest in genealogy was 0% and his 100%. I like research and do like to get my teeth into things on occasion but do now have a schedule that I am attached to with regard to the next ten years if that should happen to be workable. Although Edward loved his time with the Ontario Genealogical Society (now Ontario Ancestors) it definitely took away from his own personal research time. But he was lonely and needed more companionship than I did and so the OGS filled that niche for him along with his time at Orleans United Church and a number of other groups. Gordon Riddle invited him to go to a meeting of the OGS which was Edward's first meeting of the OGS society. That was not something that interested me at all but the two of them seemed to enjoy being in that group for sure. My memory is hazy as to how long Gordon attended after that with him as I was pregnant with my second child; trying to keep food in my stomach and not miscarry as I was prone to that in the early months of pregnancy. We did not attend the OGS in London, Ontario when we lived there as our shared interest was the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada which we attended along with a couple of other items like Edward's United Church. Here Orleans United Church, the Ottawa Field Naturalist Club (love birdwatching), a committee looking at sports in the area and I was doing Brownies as a leader for my oldest daughter occupied us although Edward also did the Ham Radio Club and a couple of other items.  Before we came to Ottawa, Edward had completed his PhD, done a two year post-Doc in Chemical Engineering and I was involved in writing and research in those days in a couple of different jobs over time until my couple of years at the Post Office sitting which gave us our wonderful first daughter. We loved to camp on the weekends in the summer, Church on Sundays through the rest of the year and that was our life along with visiting with families until we moved to Ottawa. Far from family I actually enjoyed all of that quiet time with our eldest and refrained from doing much although Edward suggested the Scientists' Wives Group at NRC which I did attend for a while. He thought I might enjoy that thinking most of the people would be interested in Science but Edward although he was an Inorganic Chemist was employed as a Technical Librarian having completed his MLS after his PhD so I did not see myself as really fitting in with that group. His job though interested him as he was there to see journals go from in the hand as paper to electronic and available anywhere by download and he enjoyed it. Actually I noticed that he didn't have a cold all that time and wondered then if for him it was better not to be in a lab 100% of his working time. Working with chemicals does have its problems. I thought it was a good move for him and moved on from the idea of his being a Scientist at a University or in industry. But I am using up my working time and the dogs are still sound asleep so must get back to work. The Ontario Archives is where I will check to see if they would like these pictures of the early settlers in Oxford/Brant Counties of Ontario who did head to British Columbia later in the 1800s as early settlers there. But their roots were here in Ontario with regard to Canada.

Another rainy day

 This has been truly a rainy August. Up to Day 8 with dog sitting and they are both missing their usual family so much (pretty soon their very busy time will be over). The rain doesn't help very much for sure. They enjoy the yard here and have spent a fair amount of time outside although have to bring the little one in if she barks. She is such a loving dog it is hard to get annoyed with her but at the moment she is sitting on my bed where I can watch her as everyone is walking their dogs since the rain is only getting heavier and she barks at each one as they pass down the street. 

An inquiry on one of my blog posts from 2012 yesterday but I could not be of much help for sure. It was a scan of the Flemish Grave Yard in Bermondsey just across the river from London. We spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, in this area having walked a good many of the streets in the Bermondsey area particularly noting Long Lane, Tooley and a few others where I can find associations with my Buller, Beard and Hemsley families there. It was very much a walk through time for me. None of this particular history passed down in the Buller family. My grandmother (father was Edwin Denner Buller) knew that there was a vague connection with the London area but no details. Her father, by the time she was 11, was widowed with five living children working two jobs and not a lot of time. He too would succumb by the time she was 14 to pneumonia. The children were scooped up, as my grandmother put it, by the Birmingham Union and went to Cottage Green in Soho where they lived for the next while. My grandmother, herself, could have gone to live with her widowed/spinster sisters of her father but declined the kind offer as they were not willing to take in the four younger children and she preferred to be with her siblings. Likely she would have spent her time waiting on her aunts and there wasn't a promise to let her go to school which she really wanted to do. Options! Options! But I digress and our several times in Bermondsey proved to be most interesting but did not provide names for Christopher Buller's parents (Edwin Denner Buller's grandfather). The records for St Olave Church did contain the burials for Christopher, his wife and an infant son but not too much else. I will pursue the Buller family at a later date. 

So how to spend my first working day of the week. Sunday I do not generally work but do go to Church and often spend the time in contemplation. Monday and Tuesday I clean although do have a dream of getting that down to one day but probably not until I move to a smaller place. Wednesday to Saturday are usual working days but I am spending time with the dogs as well so not getting too much done. 

Since my early teen years I have watched the National Conventions for the two parties in the United States (I always watch ours here as well when it is televised). Both are always interesting; the Americans have fascinating conventions fully televised. One gets to see and hear so much watching them. Yesterday I watched part of the Convention and it is must over two months to go to the Election in the United States. Being a Republic like the United States is very different from being a Constitutional Monarchy. I prefer our Westminster System of Government especially now that our Governor General is of the First Nations. I think it is such an obvious choice to always have the Governor General represent both the Crown and the First Peoples of Canada. Although I found Governor General Johnson to be excellent I have not been very pleased with the choices since the mid 1990s. I think selecting people without a long history in the country doesn't really suit the office. 

Latin at noon but this morning I shall begin a list of the projects that I would like to accomplish by the end of this year. 

The rest of the cleaning

 Today is the rest of the cleaning and the dogs are letting me get to that as they hate the vacuum. No following me around just sleeping on their mats and they are missing their people very much. We are a tiny substitute but the main action for them is their family. Dogs are so very loyal. The pup is still frightened of the dog two doors down so does make a bark out of sheer panic. Too bad an otherwise quiet spot in the world but for his frightened bark. The other dog tries to calm her down but she is frightened as she has not seen dogs up close to her yard before I guess. 

Yesterday basement accomplished and I have a real neat plan that involves just two steps with a break in between with each step being time consuming and I have brought what used to be a six hour job down to a 3 hour job with the robot doing one hour and a bit on its own. So not too bad. An awful lot of stuff has left this basement - we were looking at a video my husband made of the basement years ago and it was packed with just a circular path where I ran when I didn't run outside - it was a pretty small circle as I recall. We had so many books it was unbelievable - a lot of them went to the sorting group and from there to Kenya. There was a complete set of encyclopaedias (Britannica) which went to Kenya along with all the updates up to the year shortly before my father passed away. He bought them; I read them actually from cover to cover when I was six to eight years of age - loved those books but I was a little shocked to have them come to the already full basement in 1999. I had told my mother that I did not want them - no room but Edward went to a conference in London, Ontario and back he came with the van full of books and other items I had already said thank you but no thank you. There are still a few items that need changes and then have a home to go to. 

Raining here again today but the dogs have managed three runs already and no barks. I congratulated them both on that as the older dog tries to keep the younger one on the straight and narrow. Tonight they will go to bed when I do as there was a bark last night when it was later. 

Back to cleaning and Latin in the lunch hour as usual at the moment. Six more hostages (their bodies) have been brought back from Gaza. The pain for those families having to wait so long to bury their loved ones. I am saddened by all the deaths (except Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis they asked for it by invading another country or abetting it by firing on Israel) in this war; the children could have been brought here to safety and forever I will find it hard to forgive the Muslims in the western hemisphere for not doing so. The Muslims marched in our streets celebrating Hamas' victory which is a hate crime in our country!! but no time for little ones to protect them. How sad. 

Work; cleaning awaits me.

Basement cleaning day

Should be interesting cleaning the basement today with the dogs. Robot running on the rugs. They  immediately got out of the way of it. So an hour and a half to write my blog and do some other items. It is going to rain again today so they have been out for quite a bit since they got up at 7:30 a.m. I got my day organized before I went down and disturbed them. Today the little one did not bark at anything yet but perhaps nothing passed by that she noticed on the street. Generally she barks around 6:30 although I am already up then so not a problem. 

The dogs were busy yesterday searching and tracking the smells in the yard. They had a great time. We washed all the windows in the house and that sort of occupied them as well watching us. Time is moving onwards to the fall and cleanup time is in our minds. The garden fence needs to come down but will wait until the dogs go home as all that mud I do not need in the house as they will want to investigate every bit of it when they are able to do so. I do wash or wipe their feet when they come in but the garden dirt still creeps in slowly but surely when they are here. 

The wind is in the trees today and rain is promised. God is ever watching His earth and pondering humankind I do believe. We need to make more of an effort to protect and improve the planet and not take it for granted by increasing the burning of fossil fuels. It is hard, of course it is, but the earth is worth that and having an earth fit for the descendants of all of us is very important. Greed and laziness stand in the way of such protective care. 

No work done yesterday but that is usual for a Sunday. I generally like to think about the world and God on Sunday although yesterday did see the windows washed but then it is easier to look out on God's earth for sure. This year all but 5% of the sky is covered now by trees out of my workroom window. When I am weeding I am pulling out likely in the hundreds through the summer of new trees trying to grow. The forest is ever trying to return and that is good. It means the earth is productive. 

One does pray for an end to the hostilities around the world. Hamas totally to blame for the grief in Gaza and all the deaths in this war. They continue to hold over 100 people hostage that were forcibly removed from Israel over ten months ago. In twenty years with Hamas there is no progress in that country - no industries to support the population (the UN reports 500 trucks a day needed to go into that country). I do not consider higher educational institutions to be a necessity when there isn't an ability to grow one's own food and make one's own needs to a certain extent. They can come when there is a productive society capable of caring for themselves as one can always go to another country for advanced education in this modern world and people certainly did even four hundred years ago so easily done. Besides Hamas is teaching lies to the children of Gaza from the moment they go to school. Israel is an ancient population with a right to their ancient lands and anything else is a lie; one cannot live in Canada and not know that the original peoples have land rights. Release the hostages immediately and unconditionally today Hamas. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Houthis are all Satanists. 

As for Russia, get out of Ukraine. It is a sovereign country. Russia is the same as the Satanist terrorists Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The nazi psychopath Putin and his nazi enablers have destroyed Russia's good name around the world. How insulting to the people of Russia. The Italians knew how to deal with such treachery with the overthrow of the nazi Mussolini and his death at their hands. 

Breakfast completed, Latin around lunch time and basement cleaning in between.

Church online at All Saints, Cottenham near Cambridge

 A lovely service this morning from All Saints, Cottenham near Cambridge. A cafe in the Church is an interesting idea. The Churches in England have been very forward thinking as there is a cafe in the basement of St Martin-in-the-Fields. One of the most meaningful days spent in England was at St Martin-in-the-Fields which my Henry Christopher Buller and Anne (Welch) Buller attended with their older children (my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller was born in Birmingham). An interesting family to me for sure. I know a lot about them but really so little as the father of Henry Christopher Buller was Christopher Buller born circa 1764 but parents still unknown. He had a Slop Shop on Tooley Street (33) and there is still today a shop there but this area was heavily bombed so cannot be sure that the building that is still there was his Shop. He made sailor's clothes apparently. Henry had a Pork Butcher Shop in Covent Garden in London but also a Pork Butcher Shop on Lower Temple Street near his father in law's restaurant on the corner of Lower Temple Street and King Street. Certainly my time spent in England especially London was quite fascinating. 

Day Six dog-sitting and they are being very good. They miss their people so very much and we are just a substitute both of us busy with our research. The days pass quickly for us but not so much for them. We take time to be with them but the life they lead away from us is a much busier one with long walks, runs and just a lot more people! 

The dogs distract me somewhat so I am not getting a lot done but I am thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish this fall and winter before I really look into moving to a smaller place. I am just toying with it at the moment seeing what is out there mostly but a condo is pretty much settling itself into my mind or a townhome with no land!

Still raining today and on into tomorrow. We have certainly had a rainy summer here - the usual drought just didn't really happen except for a brief couple of weeks. 

Time to do rowing and weight lifting. The day moves along. Latin still to do just before lunch likely these days. 

Rainy Day here

A rainy day here for the fifth day of dog sitting but we have been out and about when it ceases a little. Dogs doing very well and I am managing. They are both good although the young one does find it hard not to bark so work on that. She usually stops immediately when I say anything as I think she is just warning me that there is something out there that she doesn't like. The older dog pushes her away from the window I notice as she knows that I do not need to know that someone is walking their dog across the street etc.

Working on the charting for the Siderfin Family. Moving along but will have to footnote it later. Still deciding how to get the best value out of footnoting for this. The footnotes already appear in the revised book that I published in January. I may call it the Companion book to the etc. etc. Will think on that for awhile. I am predicting perhaps 50 pages of charts. We will see. 

I have a feeling that I will not really get into my Blake and Pincombe books until October although will probably gradually slip them in as I am finishing up the Charting. Still thinking about the Kipp Family Newsletter. Am I accomplishing anything with publishing it? I am considering that actually. 

The next Newsletter due is the Pincombe Newsletter on the 1st of September and will get my mind around that over the next few days. Other than that the summer is passing on. I need to pick the beans and the raspberries but that is pretty much all that is left other than the tomatoes and peppers. The garden has been interesting; it definitely gets me outside for fresh air which is very likely excellent for one's health. It just isn't my preferred thing to do - gardening but my husband considered it vital and so I was out there helping him really from our first house onward although did take over much of the work in 2011 when he took ill.  

The tires are all pumped up on the bicycles and perhaps we will do that a couple of times this summer but hasn't happened yet. That was one of my favourite things to do as exercise when I was proofreading. I took my coffee breaks on the bicycle and my lunch hour break. It was great. Edward and I would ride all the way to the Aeronautical Museum (20 km) several times a week up until 2011 but then he did find it to be too much and the distance became shorter unfortunately. It was lovely doing that actually and packing a lunch; sometimes we went all the way downtown after I retired. 

The dogs tend to lie on a red blanket on my bed and watch me work. Occasionally they come over to get me to give them a back rub and when they have really had enough of my typing they start to circle around the upstairs so I know it is time for a run outside! 

Rain is for three days and then back to sunshine again. 

Latin still to do; it sometimes gets forgotten until evening at the moment. I haven't started any new lessons yet and will probably wait until September. I just practice what I know again and again and it is really worthwhile to do that. 

Day Four of Dog Sitting

Day Four of looking after my daughter's two dogs. They are big dogs; together they weigh more than I do but I enjoy them. They are so sweet. It is hard to believe that a dog would bark at them actually. They do not normally bark at other dogs. But one two doors up is probably lonely and does bark at anything new including me going out in my back yard which I have been doing for over 46 years! Although this dog has not lived there that long for sure. There have been many dogs there and they have all barked at me when I go into my yard. The bigger dog (mine) does not bark unless there is danger but the little one is still a puppy really and can get rattled much easier. But they are having a good time running up and down the yard when the other dog isn't out there barking. The one three doors down on the other side doesn't bark either. I think some dogs are more prone to it; certainly our last dog was a barker but I just worked around it when we were babysitting him. I am enjoying my time with them; they like to come and lie on my red blanket on my bed when I am working. There is just one there right now; the pup. The other dog is having a rest downstairs; they are three years apart in age and it does show. 

 Although I knew my neighbour was moving the date arrived very quickly. She was actually just an infant when she moved here (the youngest of seven children) and I first saw her in her oldest sister's arms probably the day that they moved in. Seven children quite overwhelmed my husband at the time as it was just so many children. Her parents both lived in the house after the children all left home and when my husband retired he had many many interesting conversations with them as I continued to work for nearly four years after he retired. As a very efficient gardener he often gave advice on what to grow and how to tend for it and prepare for the next year. I think it was just after her mother died that the youngest returned home with her family and they have lived there ever since her youngest was quite small so perhaps ten years I think or it could even be longer. I must admit other than helping my husband garden I was seldom outside the house unless we were going somewhere. I do love to do my regular exercises inside the house in the quiet and cool basement. Streets are amazing things; they tell so many tales of families and their lives. Best of luck to my neighbour in her new home. 

I do plan still on moving next spring; I am looking around now to see what is available and also what would be the most practical for me. In my case I would be moving to the west end of the city to be nearer family that is newly arrived in the city. It will be easier for them rather than having to come  all this way (it is 36 km across Ottawa) and for me to be closer. I need a smaller place for sure but in the next six to eight months I need to downsize everything still more than it is. I have much too much stuff still. We were over to Salvation Army with a box full of dishes that I never use yesterday. It is a gradual process as I let go of all of these belongings that my girls do not want. 

Yesterday I made the first solo trip taking my car into the dealership to get a repair made and then went back and picked it up and drove it home. It is just a nice walk about 2500 steps. I have driven a couple of times since I got my new glasses but this was the first time solo. My new glasses are working very well and I transcribed a will that I needed to look at today. I do not see any change except I think I do not have to enlarge things as much and the old writing does have a certain depth look to it because it was written with a quill and has raised texture. Never noticed that before!

Lots of work to do and I must get to it. The dogs are having a nice rest after being outside. We will go out again before it gets too hot although they do not seem to mind the heat. They just come in and have a long drink of water and enjoy the air conditioning. 

 

Middle of August

 The month of August is slipping by quickly. We did manage a kayaking expedition and walk at Petri Island last night which was quite lovely. It is very busy there now as the season draws quickly towards a return to school time and work time for some. The beach is very well used but our wet summer shows there with a lovely pond in the middle of the beach behind the main beach where the waterfowl are enjoying a quiet swim with their young ones. Everywhere there are birds walking as well as people getting their young families into the water for soon the great migration will happen and they will fly south to warmer climes. 

A little work yesterday; we are converting VHS tapes to electronic files and then will destroy the VHS tapes. I still have two VCRs but would like to donate them just to continue in my planned reduction in things. I have mostly given away the thousands of VHS commercial tapes that we had but did retain a shelf of favourite DVDs although we still have not watched even one! Time is just moving on quickly as we get things organized. Next up is picking paint for matching the here and there marks. I have to make a decision on a couple of repairs as well - if I did a total repair then I would be tempted to stay so will probably go for what needs to be done rather than what would look perfect. Weather has taken a toll on a couple of items but for the most part everything else is fine so just fixing the problems sounds like a better solution. We will see on that. 

The new fences go in in a couple of weeks and that will be nice. The old one has stood for 45 years and actually looks good still although showing its years. Ever moving forward and that is good. 

On to the day. Breakfast.

The day has slipped by

 The day has slipped by and I have been very busy as it turns out. My blog got unpublished. Nearly the middle of August and I had thought to have a couple of items done this summer that I have not yet touched but will likely in the next couple of weeks. One was charting the Siderfin Family as I did not put any genealogical charts into the Siderfin Book that I published to keep the size down. It came back to me when LAC sent me a copy of the registration for the book with me as publisher. Having cataracts done was a bit of a full time job for a short time and then getting back to doing everything the next step but it coincided with the summer and the work load of that so life just got in the way and I shall begin to work on those charts using my Legacy file. 

Another hot sunny day reminding us that it is still summer and more of it to come. I think my favourite season continues to be winter as I can get so much written work done in the summer. However, the sun is pleasant for sure. 

So today I need to do a grocery list and start to build up a little supply of essentials as fall approaches. My needs are very small it does appear which does surprise me still. But I was a child in a family of seven and I never acquired those desires for as much as I could have. I prefer to have few possessions as it turns out although I appear to be encumbered with many but gradually getting that sorted through. 

Still looking around for a place to move to in the spring but no rush on that. I need to do a bit of thinking through on all of that. Absolutely I need a smaller place and especially a smaller yard. This is too much work. This would be a good house for a family for sure; we loved this house and still do. 

Sad to see Hamas is trying to grandstand, demanding a cease fire - do they never learn that if you attack a country they will attack you back. Perhaps it is unrealistic of Israel to think they can destroy Hamas entirely but a lot of that is just desire to get their hostages back and Hamas did not carry through with that project. The ICJ ordered Hamas to release the hostages immediately and unconditionally seven months ago - that hasn't happened. Yet they expect to just say they want a ceasefire now and that it should happen. Their ignorance is beyond comprehension. So long as they are in Gaza they will attack Israel in anyway that they can. One can hardly see that their can be relief unless Hamas is completely destroyed. Hamas destroyed any opportunity for the Palestinians to actually have a country back in 2005 when they set a course to try and destroy Israel; the Palestinians are just fodder for Hamas to use as human shields including the children whilst they hide underground like the rats they are. 

More power to Ukraine as they take the war that Russia started back to Russia. When you are outnumbered by 5 to 1 that is a brave thing to do and reminiscent of Britain standing alone against Fortress Europe in 1940. Luckily Britain had the Commonwealth to help out until the greedy Axis powers did their usual over extension of attack and paid the price for that. Greed is one of the grievous sins along with pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. Russia definitely deserve this because they did not eliminate the psychopathic Nazi Putin and his adherents. Ukraine is a free country and Russia is holding under military rule some of their territory. 

The day continues.

The Irish Blessing

 The Church Service on Sunday in Switzerland concluded with the Irish Blessing being read by the presiding curate whom we have seen a number of times when Cornwall is the selection for the Sunday Service on the Church of England YouTube. I have a copy of the Irish Blessing on my wall and it was one of my Grandmother's favourite poems/sayings when I was a child. There were so many hints that her mother had been of Irish descent and a mtDNA match with a family that has known Irish descent does intrigue me. But Ellen (Taylor) Buller died at the age of 37 years of pneumonia when here youngest child was just one year of age and the twin boys born just two years before Sarah died of lung disease due to the sooty air of Birmingham at that time (mid 1890s). Life has changed very much in Birmingham; we were there in 2016 and in 2008 and the city is a lovely place to visit. My grandmother commented once that when she visited there in 1939 she could hardly believe the difference between the city then and the city that she grew up in in the 1890s and early 1900s before emigrating to Canada in 1908 on her own at the age of twenty years. I always thought she was so very brave actually coming on a ship by herself. Her only comfort was her two sisters being on the same boat as the Birmingham Union had arranged to send the youngest Sarah to Canada (with the Middleton group) to be with the family of their half-sister in London, Ontario with the second child being allowed to live with her older sister in Canada once they arrived in London, Ontario. But still she was on her own and that was very brave of her I thought. 

Working through some quotes on my roof as I want to re-roof it this fall. I have a few projects at hand to do this fall. I felt the roof could use a refreshing for a year or so. The fence is being refurbished at the back in September which will be nice. Just one more large item to work on and then I will start to do some spot painting inside. We painted it all just five years ago now and it still looks quite good. There is only so much that I feel I need to do before selling. Personally I think whoever buys the house will pretty much change it all. 

Cleaning day once again and must soon get that done. Completed the first day of cleaning yesterday. I wonder sometimes if I could do it all in one day but I am tired at the end of the first day of cleaning always so not likely! At nearly 79 years of age there is only so much ability to do things all at once!

Amazing how little sky is left to see outside of my workroom window. Another year I think the trees will cover the entire outside although still some sky shining through the breaks in the trees. I have watched everyone of these trees grow as there were none in my eye's view when we moved here. Fourty six years of trees growing; always an amazing sight. The trees last much longer than us often enough although we have hundreds of fires burning right now in the forests of Canada. It is usual for there to be fires burning but this is by far and above the normal of my childhood. 

On to the day. Breakfast completed. Latin to do next. Then begin the cleaning.

Hamas is so evil

 Hamas demands an immediate ceasefire before the discussion in Cairo but in 10.5 months since the taking of hostages into Gaza from Israel the hostages have not all been released. It is nearly eight months since the ICJ demanded that Hamas release the hostages unconditionally and right then. Hamas terrorists along with Hezbollah and the Houthis are truly Satanists. Hamas is evil to the core and not fit to be in charge of a country. Why haven't the children been taken out of this country to protect them? There are millions of Muslims here in the western hemisphere that could have taken them in but all they do is try to disrupt our lives here. I do not understand why this protection of the children has not happened; that would be a useful thing for these disrupters to do - care for the children. These children are being used as human shields by Hamas and for the news reports that come with their use of them in that way where they are killed instead of the ignorant savage Hamas fighters (hiding in tunnels underground) who stole into Israel and murdered, raped and burned people alive and took more than 250 hostages both dead and alive back into Gaza just under eleven months ago. Do not invade another country Hamas, do not bomb another country; there is a price to pay. Release the hostages, immediately and unconditionally. 

What a wonderful Olympics with 206 countries participating along with the refugee group. The total number of gold was a tie between the United States and China with the United States taking the most medals of any country. Great achievement by our neighbour to the south. In total 91 countries medaled which is 44% of all the countries that participated. That is great news really to see so many countries into sport. Congratulations to all who participated for sure. Nice that the terrorists of the world did not spoil the Olympics. Terrorists are such disgusting people; satanists all of them. 

Still scanning and another block is done; I am creating a powerpoint presentation of the pictures that Edward's mother had in her Hope Chest. 

Slowly working through a plan on how to deal with the old pictures and will investigate whether Archives of Ontario would like to have these pictures of early Oxford/Brant settlers. That idea suddenly came to me when I was going to mail some of them to Edward's niece. That way they are close at hand to that area. They already have the book that Edward published on the Kipp family back in the 70s and the update is online on his website. So will begin that investigation. That followed a long chat with my daughter who explained Fonds to me. I had an inkling of them but my background is pretty much science!

Cleaning day and it is the basement today. Latin in between. Breakfast already completed.

Go Canada Go

 The Olympics have been quite fascinating for Canada the last couple of days and our medal score now stands at 27 with 9 golds. Marvelous work by all - those who have won medals and those who have tried. Great work Canada. Our American neighbours are also doing very well with 123 medals; more than anyone else at the games. China has 39 golds with 90 medals in total and the USA at 38 golds with 123 medals  in total as said. The world is seeing a wonderful games in absolutely beautiful Paris. It is a city that one visits and comes away with visions of perfection and beauty. Ninety countries have won at least one medal which is 44% of the countries participating. Wonderful work world; what a way to work together as one people. 

We have cleaned up after the heavy rain storm and this has been a really green summer. Often it is looking somewhat parched and brown but not this year for sure. 

Sunday again and Church on YouTube - the service is from Switzerland with the theme - "how lovely on the mountains." Our time in Switzerland was quite beautiful. It is a bilingual country (trilingual actually) like Canada and it was interesting being there to see the mountains close up. Once one becomes used to the smaller distances in Europe and going in and out of countries at a rapid pace; the scenery dominates ones thoughts I think. Northern Italy was also very appealing to the eyes with its huge mountains (the Alps are really a very central part of this area just as it shows on the maps). Yet in between are lovely valleys - beautiful and green. But Sunday is such a wonderful day in the week when one contemplates all the goodness that God has given to the world and our need to maintain and bring it back to its wholeness once again. 

Breakfast and Latin; the day moves onward.

Eighty countries (including the refugee group) have medaled at the Olympics

 Another great day for Canada at the Olympics with 24 medals now (7 gold); congratulations to our athletes. The United States and China are now tied for gold (33) with the Americans winning the most medals 111 and China at 83. Our American neighbours are truly amazing. Tomorrow the closing ceremonies. 

The remnants of the hurricane blasted through the eastern part of Ontario yesterday and the rain was heavy. Looking out the window was a sheet of water coming down regularly all day long. The streets ran with water but not like what happened when it was a hurricane - we caught the tail end of that storm as we generally do. 

Completed most of my scanning yesterday - a couple more items to do that require more thought. I also started to build the excel file to go with the set of my husband's mother's pictures that she had kept through the years of our family. There are 15 scanned pages with about four of five pictures per page. Some were from her camera but some were pictures we had sent to her. 

I wrote a blog on my husband's blog about the changes to his website created by the sale of World Connect to Ancestry. The data that he had put up was a gedcom which had some of the information from Legacy. I decided to create descendant and ancestral charts, to replace the now missing information, in Legacy and that process is now complete and up on his website along with an added file: "The Ancestors of Edward Burnice Kipp" going back 20 generations. I believe the original gedcoms may become available on Ancestry; I did not check yet as I had put up the same gedcom on Ancestry for Edward already. 

Other than that it was a busy day working on a few film scanning projects. One interesting set of films were my fathers of some pictures that had come from England. I am recreating the positives although had scanned those originals before giving them to my younger sister. I am not keeping any original images as people are more likely to go and visit her. Plus my children are not that interested in genealogy (although they do enjoy learning about their ancestry and perhaps later when they are not so busy) so I must complete all of my tasks in a timely fashion and tie up all the loose ends if possible. My research tools will go to the Anglican Archives if they still want them. The book plans will probably keep me busy into my mid 80s and then I shall start to divest myself of all of these fiche, etc. What is left will all be electronic and I will deposit any "book" material in the Library of the Guild of one name studies. 

My Latin is falling behind a little so must catch up. I am getting used to my new bifocals quite quickly actually. It is good eye exercise going from distance to closeup with just a blink of the eye!

Breakfast time and then Latin. This is collection day one day late this week due to the Bank Holiday on Monday. I must get the paper and other recycling out to the curb. 

Another Good day of Scanning

 Yesterday was another good day for scanning. I now have my pile separated into items that must be photographed -large wills mostly and should be a good project for photography - and scanning. I have a camera setup that lets me photograph from above the documents. Will see how that goes. I would like to eliminate the paper but they are too large to scan. They are already transcribed which is a bonus but it is nice to have a copy of the original document. 

I still have a small pile for scanning today and hope to complete that task. That means my box is now about 3/4rds full and I will continue to work at it but in smaller doses for sure. I have scanned all of Edward's mother's pictures that she took of us and will create an excel file to record the information on the back of the pictures (or add because I know the details) and then probably destroy those pictures. 

We have thousands and thousand of printed pictures which have all been scanned. I will be weeding those out to just actual family pictures over the next couple of months. At the moment there are fourty binders from the mid 1960s to the early 2000s. I would like to bring this down to ten binders and we will see how that goes. Intermingled into this binders is one Edward created from the first sod turned for Orleans United Church to the Dedication Service. I will eventually turn this one over to Orleans United Church if they would like to have it along with the VHS tapes that we have sorted out. There are also binders with old family pictures (originals) which will go to relatives researching the individual lines. 

Yesterday I did some gardening, perhaps two hours in total, and that continues to barely make a dint in the weeds unfortunately. I also picked beans; they were very nice actually and a lot more to come. I do have quite a bit of yard work but will do that in the fall mostly at cleanup time. 

A lovely walk on the beach at Petri completed the day of exercise. You could see the storm clouds developing and it rained last night finally and we anticipate a heavy rainfall from the latest hurricane as the remnants arrive in Eastern Canada. 

Breakfast next and then Latin. 

A great day for Olympics again yesterday; Canada did well and it is always great to win medals but it is also great that we participate in so many sports. Our neighbour, the United States, doing very well with the most golds and the most medals with just a couple of days remaining. The United States and China have gone back and forth for the lead in golds but definitely the United States leads in medal count. An amazing country is our neighbours to the south. Extremely hard working and exceptional I think in the world but I think of my own country that way as well. We must forever guard our democracy from those who claim to care but the question remains who cares the most about the actual people who work the regular jobs. It is true in my country as much as any other; we must be very cautious in judging that wealthy people whose only aim is to make more money for themselves do not control our countries so much as good sense and good government that respects all of the people. Our eyes are still on Venezuela for sure. 

Continuing to thin out my box of paper

 I spent most of yesterday thinning out my paper when I was working. I came across some old film that I thought belonged to my grandmother but was actually film from some photography that my father had done of family pictures (mostly people in England). I now have the film scanner working (my daughter did it actually) and producing positives of that work. We have the original photographs but some of them are fading so it is nice to have the electronic positives created from the film negative. I will complete that today and have enough work from what I have accomplished thus far to keep me busy. There was a collection of family pictures that Edward's mother had taken so will catalogue all of them as they are now scanned into a collection in her name although may not destroy the originals as they occupy just a small pile. 

I sorted through all the paper copies of wills and I have them all in electronic form now so will destroy them as well. Plus they are on the Kew website anyway and I have transcribed all of them. The pile that was 30 centimetres high is now les than 5 centimetres to scan and take images of. Some of the wills on paper have come from record offices so will photograph them as they are large. Gradually everything in my research will be electronic. That was to be my accomplishment in August before getting back into writing in September.

Plus I have my new glasses picked up yesterday. I will start driving again today. It wasn't a problem anyway as my daughter was doing that but it will give me a chance to get used to my new eyes/new glasses which is great. I continue to be surprised by my eyes actually and highly recommend cataract surgery. One just has to remember to take time to heal and return to your regular life. It is now nearly two months since my last surgery and I am back to doing all my exercises and have added in the rowing machine. 

The Olympics continues to be an amazing watch on TV. The United States has 27 golds with a total medal count of 95, china has 25 golds with a total medal count of 66 and other countries also doing very well, Australia next, then France and Great Britain round up the top five. Canada has nineteen medals now with six golds. Still more Olympics to come and it is perhaps the greatest sporting event for me every two years. 80 countries in total have medaled  now which is 39% of the countries that have participated. That is simply wonderful to have so many competing and so many going home with at least one medal. The world of sport is by far the most interesting although science and now one name studies are perhaps my most interesting daily interest.  But for me God remains paramount in my spirit and life. Another beautiful sunny day in God's world and we are blessed with such a bountiful world and must do more to keep it that way. Thank you God for all you do.

Breakfast next and then back to Latin studies, work and exercise. I must get outside and do some outdoor work. There is always so much to do out there and it is healthy work for sure. 

Olympics continue to be the highlight

 As the Olympics continue that is the centre of the news most days - the United States now has the most golds and the greatest number of medals with China two golds less and much fewer total medals. The United States is an amazing country producing so many great Olympic athletes although other countries also have many great athletes through the years. Canada now at 18 medals total with six golds and now two golds in hammer throwing. Wonderful work. 

Praise being given to Ismail Haniyeh at Montreal and Toronto rallies is unacceptable in Canada - he is a terrorist and responsible for the massacre of the Israeli people last October. It is a hate crime against the Jewish people and breaks our laws. Thank you to Egypt for once again working with China to reduce the tension in the Middle East. 

Another beautiful day in God's world and we need to pay attention to Climate Change and rid ourselves of terrorists. Apparently Russia has asked Iran to step back from retaliation for the death of Ismail Haniyeh. After all Iran should be able to protect people on their own soil - it is really their fault that he was killed anyway. Iran created all these groups of terrorists - Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. 

Today we will get the website updated with Edward's material that was lost when World Connect ceased to exist. We are in the process of reviewing all of his webpages to make any needed corrections. The actual records will now be available as an *.pdf document. 

Cleaning all accomplished yesterday and back to working on projects. 

Breakfast next and then latin. 

Second cleaning day

Today is basement cleaning day and it is now much shorter I am happy to say. I do not mind cleaning; actually enjoy the product of it but at nearly 79 it is nice that the basement is so much easier than it was. It used to take me all day to clean it but now I am looking at a couple of hours with the i-Robot doing the rug. Great invention, vacuuming by robot although I do tend to do the rest of the vacuuming by hand as it is just easier for me to do that. 

The heat spell is broken for a bit and it was 12 degrees at the lowest in the night and up to 15 now with part sun. The wind is quiet in the trees and the world is moving on towards Fall but still a lot of summer to come for sure. September is always ambivalent but does lead us into the Fall.  It is such mornings that I think of as blessed looking at the green world around us and especially as my skyline is becoming more and more treed. The tree in our yard is 38 years old (large maple that Edward and our oldest daughter planted). They had so much fun doing that having nursed the seedling in the garden for a bit. The maple key just wandered in and survived mostly because of my daughter who was thrilled to have grown a tree. Now it is massive and fills the yard at the very end of the yard just enough up from the fence so as not to uproot it! 

God  is in the Heavens looking down on us this day I believe wondering how Homo sapiens will survive. Why are people so greedy, jealous, so envious, so hating? We could have a lovely life on our planet if the hate would just stop. We must try; two world wars destroyed so many lives and as one of the founding nations (Canada) we helped to create the United Nations. It has taken nearly ten months for the UN to fire the guilty people in UNRWA who perpetrated and aided Hamas in their barbaric incursion into Israel (did they get the real ring leaders with this group?). UNRWA must cease to exist and the Palestinians must grow their own food and create their own industries. The land is plentiful one just has to look at Israel to see that. 500 trucks a day are needed elsewhere. I believe in the legal route of proving that people have done wrong but it has taken far too long for the UN to conclude that there were traitors within UNRWA. Then Iran itself does not believe anyone has a right to exist except for their view of Islam and they fund terrorists (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis) - Iran wants death to all Jews and all Christians although we only hear about their hatred of Jews at the moment. Why do sick people like that exist in our world? The Russians attacked Ukraine and continue to do so - what gives them the right to attack a free people? Why do these terrorists exist - Russia (North Korea supplies them with weapons as does Iran) and Iran (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis)? We need an end to terrorism. It must never be forgotten that Iran does not care how many people die including Muslims as they fulfill their desire to eliminate Jews now and Christians later. Do people actually think they are safe being non-believers - I suspect Iran also hates them as non-believers! thought to contemplate as the day begins. 

The Olympics continues and the US and China are now tied for gold although the US has a huge medal count way above China and everyone else. 

The US is an amazing country but then I also think Canada is an amazing country. We (the US and Canada) have the longest non-militarized border in the world and we have been at peace for over two centuries (the incursions by the Fenians and others have always been halted by the US government but we also have pushed the intruders back to the border). Aiming for 2% GDP for our military spending though is inadequate; we need to aim for 4% so that the military is adequately funded. 

Latin moving along nicely as I am doing the last section in Part 1. Part 2 beckons me onward and will move on to there soon. 

Breakfast completed and I need to start the Robot vacuuming. 

Cleaning day once again

Church yesterday at Grimsby, Lincolnshire was most interesting. Practically no one was over 40 I think in retrospect. That is really nice to see. The music fabulous and I had to concentrate because their accents were stronger than I am used to although I had to listen carefully to my grandmother who had a strong Birmingham accent.  It was wonderful to have the Church of England on my television every Sunday although I continue with my tithe going to Christ Church Cathedral here. I am just a homebody really and enjoying not going out very often. 

We spent yesterday working on VHS tapes (watching them primarily) and set aside a couple for Orleans United Church and once I get the photograph album ready that Edward created for the construction of the Church I will donate all of that to the Church. Edward would have liked that. He loved that Church and did go back a few times after he retired but mostly we went to Christ Church Cathedral - a thank you to me for going to his United Church for 17 years. I had attended the United Church with my maternal Uncle and my grandmother as a child so not a new service for me at all but I do love my Anglican Service. 

Next task is all the video cassettes from the camera and will view them directly on the television as well but they do not fit into the VHS machines that we still have. There are quite a few of them so will catalogue them, give any to Orleans United that were from that time period and keep the ones that are family. There are also a lot of music cassettes from Edward's days in the Orleans United Church Choir. He was a member for at least a dozen years overlapping the time period when he was treasurer (just under ten years as I recall). He sang a number of solos which we will keep. Listening to a VHS tape from the 2nd anniversary service was interesting as we could pick up his tenor voice from the music quite readily as the other male voices were base. Amazing really. 

Today cleaning the upper floor and main floor although it is getting easier. One room is basically empty now and is our viewing room set up with a television and the VHS players along with converters for the other material to look at into the future. It is a small TV but does the trick very nicely. There is also a bookcase that the TV sits on and we can use the setup to view the slides on the slide projector. There are literally thousands of those and we need to thin them down. Edward loved all this material and we will keep it as he created it but need to downsize it somewhat which he was also doing knowing that at some point we would need to be in smaller quarters. 

My exercise level is now back to where it was pre-surgery although have added in the rowing machine which I rather like. It is on the spot where the treadmill was. I did not like the treadmill particularly. It did not have a good safety feature in case you had to make a sudden stop. The newer slim ones do but I actually like to just run around the house and wasn't really using that treadmill anyway. 

The day beckons; sunrise just happening and there is rain coming. A good day to clean for sure. Canada has seventeen medals now with 5 gold, 4 silver and 8 bronze. Our American neighbours have 72 medals (vastly more than anyone else) and their gold is at 19 with China just two ahead at 21 (China has 50 medals). Seventy countries have now achieved at least one medal which is 40% of the participating countries - wonderful to see such energy go into sports worldwide. Amazing people our American neighbours with a population of just over 330 million and 72 medals in total. Our population growing rapidly and now at 41 million. I wonder if by 2050 the United States and Canada will be half of a billion people. Canada has huge unoccupied land spaces but much of it still continues to be polar although climate change may make a huge difference. Time will tell.

Breakfast next and then Latin and then cleaning. 

Sunday and a beautiful sunny day

 A little cooler this morning but will again be a warm day but we had a good rainstorm last evening. The greenest summer that I remember for a while and the garden has been beautiful and the weeds very plentiful. Tomatoes have come on very well and pick them most mornings. Lettuce pretty much finished and the peppers still working at becoming peppers - lots of flowers. 

Church of England today is at St Marks, Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire. About 60 kilometres from Beverly East Riding of Yorkshire where my Gray family lived at Holme in the Wolds near Beverley and Etton. Living near the North Sea must have been an interesting life I rather think but then living near any large body of water is different from living inland. I have enjoyed living along the Ottawa River these 46 + years now. We used to be able to see the River from our top windows but obliterated now by many streets of houses. Somehow though it is now really practical to drag one's kayak over there and kayak!

Yesterday more work on my pile of scanning and I hope to complete it by week's end. It is letters I discovered in other than the bag that I kept them in and put into my box to scan sometime over the past decade or so. The time has definitely come as I wait for my new glasses to arrive. I uncovered a picture of my father and his parents - it is a miniature of the larger picture of them which I scanned and sent off to my siblings. The original picture (large one) remains in England likely with my second cousins; I think that I understood that from their last letter a few years back now. Really I must get to writing occasionally. You could clearly see that Edward (my great grandfather) had strabismus in his eye as it was quite crossed in the larger picture - not so noticeable in the smaller pictures. He was very insistent on his children going to school until they completed all that they could at the local school before going into the trades with my grandfather being a blacksmith. Perhaps his strabismus limited his time in school; not sure about that. 

When Grandpa talked about his father you could tell that his father had been very strict. One of his memories was his older brother and himself playing hooky from school and his father tracking them down and dragging them to school and he was not happy about it. They didn't repeat the experience - I think Grandpa said he was seven at the time. I have a wooden picture that Edward gave to my grandfather and grandmother that had been a wedding present to Edward and Maria Jane but I have forgotten all the details just that the picture came to Canada with them. I have treasured it all these years and it hangs on my wall and will be with me in my one-room aspect if that is how I find myself at the end of my life in a nursing home or something like that. The plan is to be independent but I am prepared for whatever happens. I think it maybe works better if you are prepared. My father did not enjoy living in a nursing home for seven years for sure!

Time for Church and then exercise, breakfast already completed and then latin. I started into a new section with fifteen new words. This is going very well. I am becoming comfortable with latin and having that be my prime item to do during the cataract surgery was a very good plan since I had help when I could not really read the material but still learn a new lesson orally. It worked perfectly. 

God's blessings on the world today and on the Olympics ongoing. Congratulations to all the Canadian athletes on their efforts - sometimes it doesn't work but the actual value is in doing it more than winning it. Winning though is always nice I am sure but being part of it must be a life winning experience. Something to enjoy thinking about in the future. Our American neighbours continue to have the most medals (61 looking at Day 9) and are next to China which has 16 gold and the USA 14 gold. We now have 16 medals - 4 gold, 4 silver and 8 bronze. 63 countries have now won at least one medal which is wonderful to have so many of the 206 countries competing medalling. 

Scanning and publishing

 I spent part of yesterday going through my research box (just one actually but it is large although now just 3/4rds full - my aim is for this box to be mostly empty in another six months) and took out the scanning I have been meaning to do for probably the better part of a decade. A 64 page document from a Blake family in Alabama was my aim and it is complete. It will be submitted along with all the rest of my Blake research to the Guild eventually. The Blake descendant has taken a yDNA test and is in the study at FT DNA. I have a number of such items which represent the research of many years on different Blake families around the world. I see my study as a repository to be used by future researchers for Blake or Pincombe which will also have its own batch of scanning to be done. 

We also worked on Edward's publications that were on World Connect but now absorbed into Ancestry. Edward meant for it to be free standing to be of use to researchers around the world and we will return it to the web. The first one is completed (nearly 500 pages) - The Ancestors of Edward Kipp. We still need to do the Three Generations of Isaac Kipp and Hannah Meed Kipp, the Tillsonburg Kipp family and perhaps a couple of others. I still need to review that website to see what was on World Connect. 

I suppose my scanning pile is now just under 10 cm high and will continue with that today. It is something I can do where I do not have to wear glasses. Works perfectly whilst I wait for my new glasses. 

Found a picture I had forgotten about; the picture of my Blake grandparents and my father not long before they left England to come to Canada. It is in pristine condition as it has lain in a drawer for many many years away from the light. It is a miniature of the large picture that was originally created which is a little faded having sat out for many years on a table. 

The Olympics still dominate my mind for TV watching. I do love the Olympics and hope that it will always be part of our culture. More commercialized than when I was a child, still one hopes that it represents the best that a country has to send to a sporting competition. We now have twelve medals; our American neighbours have 44 medals and continue to dominate the Olympics with China having the most golds at 13, France and Australia 11, Great Britain with 10 and the USA with 9 gold. We have 3 gold, 3 silver, and 6 bronze. What I find so inspiring is 54 countries around the world now have at least one medal. That is slightly more than 1/4 of all the countries participating. It is wonderful to see so many countries participating and winning. 

Another beautiful day on God's world although another day of heat warning. I must go out and water the plants once again as they will be thirsty. The fruits have certainly been eaten this year by the birds and mammals that dominate our yard; they must be thirsty. 

On to the day, breakfast first and then Latin. 

The delay in getting the supply ships built for the navy is the cause of this increase - everything is going up in price. Stop delaying the purchase of military equipment is my advice to the current government. It is money well spent and do not cut corners on the military. Find somewhere else to cut corners. Our military being well equipped is very important. A well supplied military in peacetime is a military better prepared for emergencies. 

Waiting for glasses

 I have decided to wait for my new glasses before completing the Kipp Newsletter. It does require me sitting and typing at the computer and looking at various items and it just seems prudent not to strain my eyes overly in advance of my new glasses. 

The Olympics going very well and being enjoyed by me. I do love the Olympics and the free spirit that it produces around the world as athletes compete against each other in the best field that they are able.  I have always found it annoying when cheating occurs. Why cheat? It doesn't mean anything especially when you are caught and undermines the free spirit of the games. 

Gradually working myself into a thought process where I think about projects to handle all of Edward's material and what can be done in a  couple of hours now that everything is in one place; neatly organized and waiting for me to pick up each particular set of data and contemplate what I can do with it that would benefit both his desire to clear up errors and my own desire that it not be lost to time. 

Lovely salmon for dinner last night with a blueberry sauce on top - absolutely beautiful to eat. I do love eating fish and I am not particularly a meat eater although do  eat some meat. The vegetables are very nice this time of year; the best of the harvest is now in the market for sure. Our green beans are finally starting and we will eat a lot of those  in the next couple of weeks. The tomatoes are still producing but the lettuce is pretty much finished for the year. The green onions nearly all eaten. The birds have been feasting on the raspberries, currants, gooseberries and elderberries likely for the liquid in them as much as anything. It has been and continues to be very warm and I will perhaps water the tomatoes behind the house once again today as that area dries out quickly. 

The wooden wagon has found a new owner after years of use by our children. I thought it might be too old but it was still in relatively good shape for another and I am glad that someone took it. It is nice not to see it go into the landfill for sure. 

Today, I think some more thought on the video tapes and CDs that Edward made through the years. I have managed to almost completely eliminate my pile on the desk of my own CDs. Just a couple to look at and I think they served a useful purpose at the time of creation but can now be cut up. I would like my genealogical material to be primarily computer documents and have managed to keep to one large plastic bucket of material which I may just look at today. 

Breakfast awaits and on to the day. Latin after breakfast.