All Hail!

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Wascana in the middle of the prairies. The weather turned violent Tuesday evening with a major thunderstorm accompanied by hail! Lots of damage as the garden was flattened, vehicles were pock-marked, and buildings were damaged. Hailstones as big as 35 mm hit the city,  and photographs showed even bigger ones at other locations in Saskatchewan.

Cukes were easier to find!

Wendy holding hailstones

Hail-Stripped Siding

Inevitably, some farmers were hit by the "big white harvester", although much of this year's harvesting had already been completed. Erin's condo and RAV4 received thousands of dollars worth of damage, and some older buildings nearby were pounded severely as the UV-brittle siding shattered under the onslaught. We are all okay, and the weather seems to have settled since the big storm, so we can enjoy the fine fall weather. I got out golfing with Dale on Wednesday and enjoyed that very much, except for getting stung by a wasp! I have completed my planned work at Erin's, while Wendy is still considering some further painting. Still, Erin found some plumbing projects this week and we replaced the showerheads both upstairs and down. The markets ran in the shadow of the USA Jobs data all week. When it was finally released Friday morning, it was a big miss. One might have guessed that it could have been bad enough to be good, but that was not the case, and we lost value on Friday. However, I was able to make quota for the week at least, so September has started off well. The pandemic is surging, and we're not immune to the suffering here. Saskatchewan is showing the worst results in Canada, while Alberta and BC are also showing out of control numbers of infections. All USA states are out of control, but eight of them are doing better than Saskatchewan, sigh! The Riders were off all week preparing for the Labour Day Classic tomorrow against Winnipeg—Go Riders, Go! The Jays are really down to the crunch in the playoff race, and are trailing Boston in the race for the final playoff spot. College Football has begun, and my three teams (Sooners, Longhorns, Cowboys) all won their games. 

We enjoyed a gathering on Thursday

Eric and Erica remain in Germany. Erica continues her recovery after surgery. They get out for short walks each day, although one day they pushed it up to 5 km—that may have been too ambitious! As far as helping with the costs of this surgery, the surgery project through First Baptist Church is now closed, but if you wanted to support Eric and Erica, you can send her an etransfer at: eulrich11@yahoo.ca

Erin suffered a migraine and was off work one day. Kristian has started back to school. He approves of his new classes and being back to in-person classes. Unfortunately, there has been a covid outbreak at his school, so we're apprehensive as we wait to see how widespread it is. All schools have now moved to having a mask requirement; we hope it was not too late! 

Travis and Joanna have cleared out their production office downstairs in our house. Gemma and Rhys are away a trip, so Travis managed our house guests this week—thanks! They report getting some business for Bucket Decals; that's a positive indication of a hockey season this year. 

And that's about enough for this week!