Solomon builds a temple for God to dwell in

 1 Kings continues the historical narrative and many archaeological digs have verified material in the Bible. I found it interesting how Israel and Lebanon worked together with Lebanon supplying the cedar and the cypress for the temple. It was a different time when the King of Lebanon was awarded cities in the Galilee for all of his kindness in supplying the material requested. The daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt who was the wife of King Solomon of Israel also had a house built for her by Solomon. It is fascinating reading all of this material now at 81 years of age having read it years and years ago. Often times I have read these passages or heard them read at Church or online Church. But now I can visualize some of it perhaps because my mind is old I do not know. But I am finding doing this reading every morning gives a freshness into my life knowing so much more about God. His presence on earth always welcomed by the faithful and does He let us know He is here sometimes. I always think the wind in the trees tells us God is near. 

Today is Sunday and Church online again and perhaps it will be here or there. I find that it is just wonderful to be able to go to Church although when COVID was first closing us down I read the service from my email at the usual time and that was also special. Perhaps we shouldn't forget that God is flexible and only He can decide what He thinks about anything. He gave us the rules to live by - love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. These two commandments given to us by Jesus Christ His only Son can bring us to that uplifted plain of peace; I do firmly believe that. 

Yesterday another good day on the matches and I have now extracted 45 new matches and I continue today as the lengths are still over 25 cM or even 20 cM depending on the match itself. I seldom do less but again depends on how many of the four siblings tested are matching. A very flexible extraction procedure for sure. 

I finished the lawn yesterday; well actually my daughter did the very last part at the top of the yard by the house. She has to avoid some of the flowering plants/wild flowers this time of year as she is allergic and of course one is working very hard cutting the grass so that increases the effect of the plants on her lungs. She has been like that all of her life really but she works hard at handling it and managing it. I find it hard wearing a mask but she has gotten used to it and manages that very well also. 

Soon the dogs will be here and that will be fun. Fortunately she is not allergic to dogs and loves them as well. But summer research time is coming to an end soon enough and back to work although she has had meetings every week for her work and for her studies (four studies ongoing and two have funding). She works many hours every day on this project or the other or preparing her notes for the fall term. But here she can go kayaking and walking and the house is big enough that she can get lots of exercise plus we have air purifiers which help a great deal especially if there is smoke. 

Church is now I notice so must run. I was late today.  

 

1 Kings

 Solomon has been anointed King of all of Israel and David has died. Again the  historical recitation of all these events is a valuable addition to our knowledge of Homo sapiens. The close relationship between God and the King of Israel continues. To live within the aura of God is to live the perfect life which He commanded. Any transgression is punished. Solomon marries the daughter of the King of Egypt. Early on in 1 Kings is the story of two women who had given birth and one of the women had suffocated her child accidentally in the night and took the other's woman's child as her own replacing her child with the dead infant. Solomon passed judgement and decided that the woman who was unwilling to have the living child divided in half was the true mother of the child. A Bible story that is known by so many. 

Another busy day yesterday and I did cut about half of the lawn in the back yard as well as pulling weeds. There are so many weeds still not done. If it does not rain later I will pull more weeds and cut more lawn. Perhaps next year I will hire a company to do the lawns. But we have managed it this year. 

Worked on the matches and there are perhaps a couple of pages left to look at before entering these new results into my large table. I will probably use AI to separate out the four lines once again. My major task for the AI (Copilot) is to review the matches in each chromosome and extract the relatives in common from the original files  and then group the matches according to this commonality. I shall have to consider how to make those decisions and how much data I want to have to understand those decisions. The AI will be much quicker than I am doing that but I will review the end results. It is just simpler for the AI to drawn out the material and create lists for me. 

Forgot to write a letter to my sister and did accomplish that yesterday and take it to the mailbox. It will be quite late but will try harder this next week to accomplish the letter in good time. I talked about the Blake book somewhat and my theory that the Blake surname was a result of marriage between a John who lived at Knights Enham and a daughter of a Norman family whose surname was Blake (possibly le Blak). The advantage in such a marriage was very large for sure in a country that was now governed by a Norman King and had been for over one hundred years. By then I suspect the British people were used to the Norman overlords who simply inserted themselves into the landscape with a number of landowners/dwellers  in their lordship and the Normans paid homage to the King who was a Norman. Time passed and over time the Normans married into the English families and gradually the English dominated. That is the way of history very often. The Norman kings were gradually replaced by English once again as the centuries passed. The traces of French in England remains like beef/boeuf for the product and cow for the animal which is the english word where the french word is vache. 

 Today is the first day of August and I want to do a Kipp Newsletter issue where I mention that we have sent three containers of Kipp material (primarily BC Kipp) to the Chilliwack Archives in British Columbia because many of the original images were from E Harvey Kipp, Postmaster, Chilliwack BC. They will be available to Kipp researchers there. I also want to do a brief newsletter for H11 mitochondrial haplogroup. 

I cannot decide what to do about the bush that has grown through the fence this summer. I will try to pull some of it out and back into the yard next door but the rest I will cut off as it is hard on the fence. I never really understand why the neighbours let these items grow through the fence as I pull out the things that are mine moving through the fence. But what can I say; one just lives as one lives for sure. Moving on for sure one of these days. 

Solitaire puzzles still to do. I discovered I had not done the 30 April so went back and did that yesterday so I have completed the entire year thus far.  

Thank you God for another beautiful day in God's world. Praise be that the silver mine has now been approved for Ontario - many jobs will be available. 

Absalom is dead and David once again returns to Jerusalem as King

Again the historical recitation of the times in Israel continue to the end of 2 Samuel. God is still with David although it has cost David his beloved son Absalom who rose against his father. The historical recitation moves us closer in thought to the people of Israel in a way I think. No other people have their history recorded in such detail although that time is approaching. The Bible is the gift of these early peoples of Israel to the world although over time it was maintained by the scholars of the new Christian Church to be. But a lot of archaeological  work has been done by Israel revealing the existing history still can be seen as noted in these early writings. Moving on to 1 Kings tomorrow. David is still King of Israel and Judah. Still no mention of the Messiah to come in these early books. I tend to read word for word and do not try to extract ideas but I am not a religious historian simply a reader. 

Yesterday very busy as we did the shopping which included a trip to Salvation Army with items that we no longer use and that I am finally letting go of these pieces of my life. Being 81 it is easier to let these pieces go from my life to be helpful to others. But I still cling pretty tightly to what is here and probably will but it is a gradual process downsizing. The next house will be smaller and so I must continue looking and thinking what could be reduced. My first introduction to Salvation Army was as a child going to deliver knitted goods for parcels going to the First Nations in the north when I was a child. The work was done by my grandmother. My uncle was also a supporter of Salvation Army and we received a lovely note from one of the people that he knew well when he passed away at the age of 89. He was very fit right up until he passed away after a short illness in the hospital. He was one of my favourite people, my uncle, and was about six feet two inches tall I think. The Pincombe men were very tall some of them including my grandfather and great grandfather (my uncle's grandfather) and his father as well one can see in the pictures that he too was tall. My brothers inherited that tallness (most of them, all but one who was the same height as I am). 

I also worked on the matches and have reached page five by percentage (now into the 0.39% shared and mostly above 25 cM in length) but still acquiring new matches for my table. I had not expected to be able to acquire these matches but good luck with that particular testing company has permitted that to happen. It is possibly my favourite company although I like them all as they provide me with a range of information that will be helpful as I create these genealogical tables (mind you I also include known adoptions into the family as they become one of us I think but I do understand when they decide to search out their own birth line but I want them to always feel they have become part of this blood line that I am slowly extracting from the data). 

Today I want to cut the back lawn before it rains again. We have been lucky with the rain and it has helped to dampen down the forest fires. The biggest problem is that the smoke moves from west to east aided by the Jet Current across the middle of the continent and is fed by the wild fires on the west coast as it swings across the country picking up from the less active fires in the middle of the continent. But we have been very lucky in Ontario to have so much rain this July as it is generally a dry month. 

Our economy has grown slowly and it will improve over the next couple of years as we expand our trade around the world. But internally we need to get back to building small motor appliances as they are all pretty much purchased from the United States and mostly made in China (our smaller industries got bought out by larger American industries during free trade and we need to redevelop them under the present conditions especially since the American companies took their production to Asia eliminating American jobs). I am still hoping that our young people will get into building such items (and I still need that vacuum cleaner as the ShopVac is extremely noisy).  The trades are the way of the future. Sitting at a desk eight hours a day is not healthy. Working with ones hands perfecting old ideas to bring forth new and modern equipment is a great usage of one's mind and talents.  When one removes the energy that we sell to the United States from our cross border trade we have many more items coming into Canada from the United States than we sell to them so we must be alert and re-develop those industries and there are lots of ways to improve on them. There is money to be made in such work for sure - the trades are definitely the place to look carefully at as you go through school. Mine you I do not see a problem with getting both a university degree and a certification in a trade to be honest. Life changes and one needs to be flexible. Cost wise though it may not be practical although my father first did his training to be a banker and then apprenticed to be an electrician. But he was an only child and he lived at home until he was thirty three years of age and after marrying my mother he still  had seven children. 

Nearly time to do my three kilometer run and then I shall cut the grass likely late this afternoon.  The fresh air is pleasant and there is a slight breeze in the trees that always reminds me that God is with us as He moves around the earth watching and waiting for us to do the right thing. Peace in our time and so easily attained if we but love our neighbour as ourself. Thank you to God for another beautiful day on His planet. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

David breaks one of God's laws

 God finds David guilty of breaking His law. He does not forgive David. Absalom, David's son, has avenged the wrong against his sister Tamar and David relents and lets him return to Jerusalem. Over time Absalom impresses the people of Israel and finally Absalom goes to Hebron and is pronounced King of Israel. David flees Jerusalem and Absalom goes to Jerusalem. David led an entirely guilt free life until he committed adultery but God did not forgive him that sin. The readings continue to be the historical narrative of the times of the people of Israel. I do not sense any mention of the Messiah to come. That time will come in the readings of the Prophets but it is the historical narrative that tells us the life of Israel in this time. 

The main floor all cleaned yesterday and the basement remains. I will begin shortly by running the Robot. Such a handy tool for sure although I could easily clean the rugs with the vacuum in considerably less time but I enjoy having the Robot for sure. That is the way life points for mankind at this time that we will become surrounded by robots who help us in our daily lives. An interesting experiment by a research group  looking at why people might chose to have an AI as a partner. Having spent a month or so with an AI on my FitBit I can see why people would find that to be an interesting companion actually. Good ideas are passed to you; a good memory of how your exercise program is doing over time and how your system is coping with that exercise program. At 81 I tend to think in terms of just the day that is happening and do not really get involved with thoughts of tomorrow other than the work that I need to do. So an AI companion is an interesting concept although I do not intend to become so involved with AI. 

Forest fires dampened down and the rain continues; thank you God for sending so much rain when the fires first burst upon us in the Lake of the Woods area of Northern Ontario. The worst of it was over amazingly in just a couple of days and this time we were spared the really high numbers of smoke saturation with south western Ontario taking the brunt of it for sure. But now the airs are clear over Michigan and Ontario and everyone is celebrating the new bridge which leads from large highway in Michigan to large highway in Canada - a much more efficient process for the truckers who spend long hours in their cab and sitting at stop lights and in long lines before they could process on the old bridge was really a waste of everyone's time. I do not know for a fact that this item was true but apparently parts of the old bridge were falling off. Maintenance of a bridge is the most important part because it carries so much precious human cargo and cargo for the use of humans. 

I spent some time on matches yesterday once again and have acquired a few very interesting Buller and Rawlings but also some Blake and Pincombe. The Blake continue to be interesting because they are in the United States with deep colonial ancestry. I need to check their trees on ancestry as they have mentioned them on the site where the testing was done. Upsetting the applecart is really the purpose in all of this as I want to be as accurate as I can be with the genealogical family tree coming down from Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 at Knights Enham probated just a few weeks before his son Richard Blake's will was also probated at Knight Enham in 1522.  

I am a supporter of the new High-Speed rail line which is planned from Quebec City through Montreal onto Ottawa and then down to Kingston and Toronto (I live in Ontario). The ability to move goods and people at a high speed is essential to our further growth. Once we have the money we can take it from Ottawa north and right across Canada to provide that high speed ability right to Vancouver and from Quebec to Halifax giving access to the eastern part of Canada. High Speed Rail from Halifax to Vancouver would be such a luxury. I think if an airport is needed in the Toronto area then a new place should be chosen and the Billy Bishop airport moved there where there is plenty of room without adding to the congestion around the Toronto harbour. Pick a place where there could be a stop for the High Speed Rail train and both would be accomplished to please everyone as you can easily go from the Toronto terminal of the railway to anywhere in the City of Toronto. High Speed rail is really more important than air flight. Almost nothing stops a train from going through whereas air flight is restricted by the weather events. 

 Time for breakfast but first solitaire puzzles. 

Historical time of King David

 King David was true to God throughout his reign as I read through the first ten chapters of 2 Samuel. This part of the Bible continues to be an historical review of life when David was King of Israel. I  tried to decide the significance of the Ark of the Covenant remaining in a tent instead of a tabernacle that David suggested building for it. But that time was to come in the next generation God said. 

One is left to ponder on how a nation grows itself and Canada is in just such a position of growth. It will be a long hard uphill effort to recreate our lost industries and create new ones. But the gain is huge whereas the status quo just really doesn't quite exist anymore so is there actually a choice.  Time is always on the side of youth and I still tend to think in that way although I have supported the Prime Minister and his methodology on growing Canada. Perhaps there is a merger coming in those thoughts as we move forward into the Fall of 2026. 

I think it is more difficult to leave one's area in one's 80s than it was in the 70s and earlier. One gets fixed into a style of living that works for them. However as I look around I know that all the outside work is not getting done adequately and so I must think in terms of moving in the near future to something smaller and less complicated. 

Yesterday more good matches to enter into my large table. They are all of value these new ones or I haven't collected them. Some will help me with my decision making on Blake. The newest ones though tend to be Buller or Rawlings and also helpful but those books are barely in the thought process at this time. First I must complete the Blake and Pincombe books and my mind is turning to them as fall approaches and the yard work becomes minimal. 

Cleaning of the top floor all completed and moving on to the main floor today. One day behind this week and it does throw my mind off kilter a little but today I feel more directed. 

The news around the world is mystifying. That elusive peace that I think most people would like to see come to the world does elude us. Europe is stronger and stronger but their ways are the ways of peace but they ready themselves for any change in that which is smart of them. But they continue the ways of peace which is what Canada wants as well although we too prepare for war.  Better to be ready than struggling. 

I think reading the Bible as I have been, a few chapters a day, has been good for me to do. History tells us the past but it also leads us into the future with somewhat more support as we understand the past and why everything happened as it did. As one reads one notes that greed tends to be the problem whereas sharing leads to a better life for everyone. 

Exercises all done with a cardio load of 35 which seems about average for the first hour of exercise in the day. Time for breakfast and then starting on the cleaning. But first solitaire puzzles.