Hello again.
Well, after I wrote my Tuesday blog post, I jumped on the bus and went downtown. I spent most of the morning at the main library, researching a fire in downtown Halifax in 1943. I walked around the downtown, eating the sandwiches Patricia had prepared for me and seeing the newish buildings. The tear up of Spring Garden Road is going at a languid pace. The block between South Park and Dresdon think it is, is all ripped up, revealing the old tram lines.
By the time all is done, there will be more pedestrian walk ways during that section of the road, and even less area for cars to be on. I can take the hint and not go downtown anymore, but they should explicitly tell me that.
Anyway, in the afternoon I went to the Archives and researched another unsolved murder, this one from more than 100 years ago. I cannot find a picture of the victim but did find one of the person accused of killing him and details of the trial.
I returned home. Patricia had spent a quiet day by herself, but prepared dinner for us. That evening I purchased a used lawn mower and whipper snipper thingy for a total of $35. It is a Yardworks lawn mower and a Yardworks weed eater thingy. I mowed the lawn and snipped weeds with them on Wednesday and they work great.
I now have two Yardworks lawn mowers. They are fine for smaller lawns like ours, and seem to last forever, requiring very little maintenance. They just work. The weed eater thingy is an especially good find. It has two holes for the cord, and the motor seems more powerful than the one on my existing machine.
I do not collect lawn mowers, even though I now have four of them. The first electric lawn mower, assuming it still works, will be sold on FB marketplace in the next week or two. If it doesn't work, I will give it away. The second lawn mower is just a push thingy, which I seldom use and will likely sell as well. But the Yardworks mowers will be kept and used until they fall apart. I will likely also purchase another outdoor extension cord to complete the planned redundancy.
I love getting a good deal. We grew up without a pile of money, and my parents always made do with what we had. It largely rubbed off on me. If I can get something inexpensively, and it lasts me a long time, then that is a good thing.
Also on Wednesday, the man I have hired to do some home improvements began his work. By the time he is done, there will be a nice ramp leading to the back yard. There is just a drop off now, so if we are using a wheelbarrow or pushing one of the 4 lawn mowers, we either have to live the thing up over the ledge, or "trespass" on the neighbours' property to move the item in question. The ramp is long overdue.
He will also jackhammer the crappy pavement job that was done here in the backyard, before I owned the property. It is unsightly and overgrown and we have never liked it. There are a couple of other things he is doing as well that will result in the back yard looking much better. Looking forward to it being done.
Today has been a quiet day so far, but the news of the 751 graves found where the residential school was for 100 years is deeply sobering and upsetting. I have no idea why the national government allowed this to happen at all, or why any church would agree to go along with this horrid program.
I have done a full 180 on this. As recently as last week, I thought it was disrespectful to deface a statue of, say, John A. Macdonald, but now I think that if removing a statue or renaming a street helps people deal with what happened, then go ahead and do it.
I am not ashamed of being a Canadian, but that may come yet.
There is a word for what happened to those Indigenous children. Genocide.
I am going to take a break. Talk at ya tomorrow.
Bevboy
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