David and Jonathan

David and Jonathan, the Bible Book (1 Samuel) that taught us about love between people; a love that saved a life. Jonathan the son of King Saul and David the son of Jesse shared a love of God the Creator and believed in Him. At least I read it that way. It is a beautiful book of the Bible which talks about this brotherly love between the two young men. David is now married to Jonathan's sister Michal who also loves David dearly. The two children of Saul risked much to save David. 

That the Messiah will come is still not visible as I read; it will be as I know when the prophets to come start talking about the Promised Messiah from God. 

Yesterday I completed for the most part the moving of the rooms and I am pleased with the result. I have one extraneous box looking at me and I will sort through it today. It is a brand new Bankers Box so likely we put it together and now I need to make decisions on its contents. I was also looking for the material on the Allen family. I had an Archival Box labeled "Allen" but it didn't have in it what I thought it might so I was back at square one and then I found the binder that listed contents as Kipp/Link/Allen but it too came up with very little. But then I thought about the one box that we put together but I haven't looked at the five business bags that we put into it. It is labeled latest research and that is how Edward managed his research by family line putting in the material that he wanted to work with on various trips here and there. He put into these business bags (from conferences) the different family items he was working on and today I shall also have a look in those bags to see if there is a devoted Allen bag as it was one of the last trips that we made before COVID to meet with Edward's Allen's cousins. It was two trips - one to Gravenhurst in Northern Ontario and another to Belleville I think along the 401 in south eastern Ontario. 

My work is cut out for me today and those two boxes will occupy me for the rest of the morning. I need to do this whilst I am still able and then I can get back to writing my books in the fall and winter. I do so look forward to all that snow on the ground for days and weeks on end. I get so much work done at that time. A note on the door asking people to please not disturb me as I am writing and soon the letter carrier will no longer deliver mail as well since we are going to postal mailboxes. I still prefer the idea of virtual mailboxes - it would be the making of Canada Post as there could be all sorts of spin offs from that when people want printed copy they can pay both to have the job printed and to have it delivered to their home. Canada Post offers the best delivery service in Canada; they are good at it. The monies would keep Canada Post solvent instead of always having shortfalls. 

Exercises all completed first thing this morning with a cardio load of 35 and 1 hour of exercise. It was a good spread of times in each zone - light 19%, moderate 37%, vigorous 39% and peak 5%. Today I will run for 30 minutes a little later and perhaps some weightlifting. Time will tell. 

Canada continues to point itself towards diversification of trade; breaking down any remaining provincial barriers to trade and increasing our defense spending. The pipelines are finally a go and I am very happy about that as well as the mines that are in the works/in thought process or just waiting to be thought about. The Gordie Howe Bridge got its official opening day in Windsor and everybody is happy. The extra 320 million in cost is likely financing the debt a longer period than planned. Extra maintenance for sure. 

Conrad Black's editorial today very well written as always. Thank you to him for so concisely producing a lecture that everyone can benefit from reading. The United States is our great friend and neighbour but we can and will stand on our own as we did at the end of the Second World War and well into the 1960s. We need to get back to that sort of strong defense ability, independence and break down those provincial barriers. I hear there are now British Columbia cherries on the market but haven't seen them here yet. I continue to support 100% Prime Minister Carney's ideas on how to increase our defense and diversify our trade around the world. 

Solitaire puzzles to do. 

Samuel and Saul

Continued reading the Book of 1 Samuel and the times of Samuel as an old man anointing Saul to be  King of Israel. The Creator God considered Himself to be King of Israel but none the less He had Samuel anoint Saul as King. Saul is very successful in battle but does not follow strictly the rules that God has stated. It is the history that I am re-reading and I remember it. I think we have learned the Law told to us (the Torah) in the first five books and now we are into the history of the people of Israel. God has allowed the people to have what they requested and allowed for an anointed King to be in Israel. Still the prophecy of the Messiah has not yet appeared in the text and I do not see that there is a reference to a coming Messiah. Tomorrow I continue with reading 1 Samuel. Rethought and changed it somewhat. 

Gradually getting everything back in place once again after all of our moving things about. It does give the place a shakeup so to speak moving away any accumulated dust from hard to reach spots. I used to thoroughly houseclean each room when I stayed home all those years when the children were young and actually my eldest was fifteen when I started to go into work as a proofreader although still did read some of the work at home in the afternoons. By then both of our children were in school all day. They are eight years apart in age.  

No work done yesterday as I cleaned the basement and then continued on into the afternoon completing the move of all of Edward's boxes into a different room. It gave me a chance to glance and I discovered a binder that I was missing (not surprising since there are still at least 60 binders of his work including the 40 binders of family pictures). The task of downsizing those binders begins now and I do hope to complete some of that work by Christmas this year (the intent was Christmas last year). I was somewhat unwell last year and my work level was lower than normal so did not accomplish that task. I feel stronger this year although I can tell that the years are adding up and my days on this earth are much shorter than I have already lived. 

I shall cut the front lawn today and perhaps some of the back lawn. It is meant to be a good day and suitable for that I rather think. I am also now relocating my few boxes of material for my genealogical work and will accomplish that today as well. 

I will try to do some work in between. The days move quickly but are bringing me to my favourite seasons of the year - Fall and Winter. I will get lots of work done. The books will not publish themselves so my work load will increase to help move that along. 

Will stay away from the news once again for awhile. The Prime Minister, as always,  has it in hand and his ideas are sound based on his many years of experience in the business/finance world. It is good to see the Premiers of the Provinces and Territories all working together to diversify our trade around the world and to create a strong Canada. It was the dream of the Fathers of Confederation and they did their best to prepare our country to be strong within Canada.  

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

The End Game is the important part

 Canada wants to end up as an energy power house with their trade diversified around the world. That is the end game for Canada and there are still barriers between the provinces. I was hoping at the meeting the Premiers would break down the rest of those barriers. That is what is important. I think the Premier from NB has the right idea focusing on the power generating abilities of New Brunswick. I like it that the Premier of Manitoba is mentioning the pipeline from Alberta to Ontario in a positive way. 

On our end game we need to be quick and decisive and get trade diversified particularly internally inside the country and around the world. We are very supportive of the United States being a large purchaser of our natural resources; they are our friend and neighbour. The advantage of shipping to them across a border shared between us for thousands of miles is good business for both of us. Our continued increase in business with the third partner in CUSMA Mexico is also very good business and we are using both rail and ship to make that the best means of doing business with them. At the moment we are doing well with exporting those same natural resources around the world at world prices. The Americans are about to put tariffs on a whole lot of other countries around the world and I prefer not to be an example they can point to for getting hysterical about those tariffs. 

Right now Canadians are focused on buying Canadian - putting barriers on American products just gains us ill will and more tariffs. The chances are that very little of one particular product would have been sold even on the shelves. The determination was here to buy Canadian and diversify our trade.  However we need to protect our farms as I do not want to eat heavily manufactured food or food made from freeze dried products in particular cheese and the American states that provide us with good foodstuffs presently are our greatest supporters in all of that as they want to protect their family farms particularly in the bordering states and we are their biggest customers. We are inexpensive to ship to for them as well. Factory farms are an item to avoid in Canada. Good food is high on my list even if I barely eat anything but  what I do eat I want it to be good. 

Reading the book of 1 Samuel and the first seven chapters which sees the birth of Samuel, his dedication to the Lord and the coming of Samuel to be a Judge in Israel. He talked with God and steered the people of Israel back to the true Creator God. Life was better now for the Israeli people as they returned to worshiping the Creator God and their land became their own once again and they prospered. Chapter 8 I glanced at briefly and one could see the evil entering once again even in the house of Samuel but more on that tomorrow. 

Yesterday was a busy working day as we moved rooms about setting me up to do more downsizing this fall and winter. I am getting older and older and my time ahead of me is considerably shorter than the years I have passed through. I am looking forward to getting all of Edward's work distributed to his cousins for their continuing research into their mutual family lines. I also want to get back to writing my books which is a slow process always in the summer. 

Exercises done and breakfast eaten. Solitaire puzzles remain to be done.  

 

Illustrated Dictionary and Concordance of the Bible

I think perhaps I was trying to read too much into the Book of Judges. When I read the Concordance summary of Judges it tells me that the historical content of the Book is the most important. It related the time between the conquest of Canaan and the foundation of the monarchy. Moving on to the Book of Ruth which is one of my favourite books of the Bible. This also continues the historical narrative between the conquest of Canaan and the foundation of the Monarchy as Ruth's son Obed was the father of Jesse who was the father of David. The story of Ruth has resounded through the ages as she supported her widowed mother in law left without her two sons and no grandchildren, Ruth being widowed as a young woman. She was a Moabite so not Jewish but she became the grandmother of David. Tomorrow I begin 1 Samuel. 

Worked on the matches that are new yesterday and a couple of interesting ones. Two in particular were X-chromosome matches taking my one brother and myself back to Sarah (Cheatle) Welch who was baptized in 1795 at Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. This is the Buller line (males only have 1X chromosome and it comes from our mother) and I have a number of strong known Buller matches that support this particular length and I now have a longer one than I had earlier in this area. I can see the Buller lengths in the X chromosome of my four siblings and myself and fairly readily separate this entire set of X chromosomes from my mother into Buller/Welch from her mother and Gray from her father which takes me back in the paternal line of her father to my 3x great grandmother Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge, her daughter Elizabeth Mary Ann (Routledge) Gray and her daughter Grace (Gray) Pincombe (this was a blended Gray-Routledge X Chromosome). This X chromosome had been passed from Grace to her son John Routledge Pincombe and intact to my mother Helen Louise (Pincombe) Blake. My one brother received his singleton X chromosome from my mother  all Buller (Buller from our maternal grandmother who received it from her father Edwin Denner Buller which was intact from his mother Sarah (Cheatle) Welch) whereas my maternal X chromosome from my mother was 2/3rds Buller and 1/3rd Gray. Interesting to have this much data very often. 

The main floor is all cleaned now and just the basement to do but will do that tomorrow. Today is a work day and looking forward to that sort of pause in the cleaning week. 

Exercises finished a while ago now with a cardio load of 35 and already this week I have completed 38% of the amount of cardio that the AI decided to set me up with and I thought it was too much but last week I actually did 99% of it. AI also placed my amount of sleep desired at 8 hours instead of my usual and preferred 7 hours. I think 7 hours is enough myself however I am no longer using the AI Coach routine (part of the free six month package that came with the FitBit) as I found it to be interesting but not something I had time to stop and look at. I do like the FitBit though and certainly the AI has good ideas if one is looking for that. 

We continue on our path to become a global energy power and diversify our trade so that it is not concentrated going to one country mostly although we do trade with Mexico as well within that deal and we are increasing trade with them as well. Trade is gradually reducing with our neighbour to the south and now down to 70%. Ideally I think we could try for 50% as that would then supply the needed items from us according to the American Ambassador to Canada. Then the other 50% would be around the world and in return we would buy interesting items that we have heard about but we weren't seeing them on our grocery shelves/store shelves. We do need to protect our dairy though as we have lost so many of our industries to the United States during Free Trade (mostly closed down but some were bought up and transferred to the United States (they took them offshore from the United States to Asia and caused a problem with their economy) but definitely we do not want to lose our very good farms. Also we need to make more money to help with our fires caused by Climate Change as that is the big driver of all these fires primarily set by lightning. Since we are not one of the large polluters in terms of Climate Change and we continue being careful to use carbon collection as much as is possible.  Our youth could bring back a lot of those industries like small motor type products and even a home grown car industry might be interesting but we do like the American cars. 

Solitaire puzzles next.  

Fascinating story about the Altar Stone in the midst of Stonehenge

 We visited Stonehenge twice during our trips to the British Isles. The first time in 2008 and the second in 2016 and both were amazing for different reasons. In 2008 you could get up close to the stones and actually see the Altar Stone but by 2016 you had to follow a path around Stonehenge a bit distant but still you are feeling close up. It gave me a different perspective looking at it from a distance. I especially wanted to see Stonehenge because my father had gone to see Stonehenge when he was just a boy. His mother took him on a family trip to Stonehenge along with other family members. One of my Rawlings cousins sent me a picture from that time period of a group of people waiting at a bus station.

 This is a picture from before the First World War that my cousin's mother had carried in her purse as a memory probably. My father could not remember when he did mention going to Stonehenge other than everyone in the family was going for a trip together (my grandmother and father came to Canada in mid 1913, my grandfather had come earlier to his job in Feb 1913). Is one of those children my father and the woman at the far left sitting down my grandmother? The woman does look like Bessie but it is a long time ago but the Rawlings family was very large and my grandmother had 3 half-siblings and her mother (also a Rawlings) had six siblings and all but two married and had families. I think they were a close family because they still wrote back and forth and I have some of those letters from just before the Second World War. I had mentioned to this cousin who shared the image with me that my father remembered going with the family to see Stonehenge and it was almost immediately that he sent me the picture. Unfortunately when I received it there was no one who could have told me whether it was my father and grandmother on their way to Stonehenge with the family but it was exciting to think about it. Not sure of the location but suspect it might be Ludgershall in Wiltshire. No idea on that. Perhaps I will pursue that thought one day. 

But I am digressing from the story about the Altar Stone and testing that shows it could have come from Northeast Scotland. The Orkneys were also mentioned and we did visit the Orkney Islands and the pictures in the article were an interesting reminder of that trip. 

It was a day of interesting articles as a picture of Kakabeka Falls appeared with a story referring to it as the Niagara Falls of the North (we visited it in 1968 and it was spectacular).  I recognized the picture immediately except for the lovely stairway which must be new since then and a treat to climb these days I suspect. It is 30 kilometres west of the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario on the Kaministiquia River. 

I continued reading Judges and must reflect on the information. I have completed this Book of the Bible and any comment made by me would just be saying what other people say about the Book of Judges. 

Cleaning all accomplished and today it is the main floor. Woke up early and decided to read a bit but Judges is not a book of the Bible that I know very well. I shall have to think about it for awhile. 

Still no work accomplished but that is not unusual in the summer. Still weeding to do outside and will try to accomplish that later in the week. Grass needs to be cut as well. 

We continue as a country to work towards our goal of being an exporter of oil, gas and precious minerals needed by the world. It will make us independent once again. Our military is growing and our defense materials are increasing rapidly as we move forward making ourselves along with the other Arctic countries very defensible. 

I often think of my cousins in the United States and hope that they are managing well. I am not much of a letter writer/emailer as I tend to just work on my projects. 

The warm summer will start to cool off as we enter into the month of August. Hard to believe how fast July has passed.  I always welcome Fall and Winter as I can get back to work once again on my books. 

Solitaire puzzles to do and then back to sleep for a bit.