Relaxing—Are we ready?

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. The weather has been seasonable, but with cool temperatures overnight, and we've received a bit of welcomed rain. Wendy has made some considerable progress on the lawn-edge planting areas in the back. It's looking great!

Hostas coming in

I have continued my battle with dandelions, and managed another mowing of both lawns. I am beginning to despair of my garden seeding; can seeds get out of date? The temperatures have been favourable, the moisture is there. Why am I seeing such poor germination? Our provinces are working through various phases in the battle with the coronavirus. I continued my work with the small round planter made with white oak salvaged from a pallet. It turned out pretty well, I think. 

Wendy will sand and finish it

Effective June 21st, Manitoba will allow travellers from northwestern Ontario, and Saskatchewan will allow arrivals without quarantine. We're starting to consider plans to travel west in July. Ontario is allowing us to develop a larger family grouping of up to ten people, and we're delighted to include Trav, Joanna and crew in our grouping. The markets continued their wild ways, most spectacularly on Thursday when DOW dipped over 1800 points! Thankfully, we got some recovery on Friday, and I remain on quota for the month so far. Golf returned this week, and I've been watching that with interest. Fans are not allowed to attend, but the experience via TV is really not much different than what I'm used to enjoying. Other sports continue to negotiate with their players. The NHL has announced that hockey will return with an extended playoff, but exactly when, we do not know. Today we enjoyed a special treat as Cindy set up a Zoom meeting in honour of her birthday. We were able to see and visit with our siblings. Thanks for that!

Eric and Erica are really fired up about house renovations in PA, resulting in much talk. They've been doing the heavy lifting in the discussion department, while Liam is left with the easier job of actually doing the renovations. As restrictions are easing, we are hopeful to get out there this summer and help with at least the discussion and planning side! Haaken has a new addition at his home in Victoria—a cute, little puppy. He is not a dog fan, but he reports that it is fine. 

Kristian has been suffering with allergies all week. This included the development of a cough and raised concerns that it might be more than allergies. Both Erin and Kristian were tested for CV-19 on Friday; they got their results today. As Erin expected, both came back negative, so we're much relieved. One of the repercussions was that Erin had to isolate along with Kristian until the results come back, so they've been enjoying time at home since Thursday. 

Travis, Joanna and crew are now part of our family grouping. They did some shopping for us today, and we enjoyed our first visit with our new group! Gemma continues her classwork out of our basement. Andrew is working at Walmart Pharmacy. 

And that's about enough for this week.