I am sitting in my easy chair, the windows are open, the sun is shining, the breeze is wandering through the house, and I am happy as a clam.
Ginger, on the other hand, decidedly does not like open windows. The smells! The noise! The pesky breeze that tickles his fur! All annoyances! Don’t worry Ginger, it won’t be long before the heat will dictate closed windows and air conditioning.
So far the radon levels are above Canadian recommended levels when the windows are closed, and far below those levels when the windows are open. We are toying with different ideas, but one thing is for sure, our basement will never be crack free to keep the radon out. Older homes are not designed for such things, but then they were not designed to be as air tight and energy efficient as they are now. Our energy efficiency renovations have exacerbated the radon issue, now we need to deal with that. In addition, the forced air heating system circulates the radon all over the house, so that the levels in the basement are no different than the levels on the main floor of the house. As Roseanne Roseannadanna, used to say, “It’s always something. If it isn’t one thing – it’s another!” That’s reality.
Worldly
Weather
12°C
Date: 3:00 PM EDT Sunday 26 April 2026
Condition: Mainly Sunny
Pressure: 102.2 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 11.7°C
Dew point: 4.5°C
Humidity: 61%
Wind: S 17 km/h
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“My Shadow
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.
He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850 – 1894
An old favourite! Robert Louis Stevenson is one of my favourite poets, along with Robert Service! My love of poetry is compliments of my Mom, who recited poetry to us at bedtime throughout early childhood.
Ginger is such an orange cat. He’s even pickier than the two with whom I live. I love hearing about his views on life.
Wendy, I try not to feed his ego too often, he is imperious enough as it is, but I must remember, he can’t read… yet!
I like the Stevenson poem, so cute! I hope you can figure out the radon problem without much difficulty. I looked it up on Wiki and learned, “A common source of environmental radon is uranium-containing minerals in the ground.” I don’t think it’s much of a concern here in Yuma.
Joan, Mom used to recite this poem to us, great memories.
I consulted a map of radon concentration in the soil, and we live in a high radon area. When I checked the radon when we first had the house, the readings were acceptable. But that was before the new windows, the attic insulation, the basement insulation, and the new heating system. Now the readings are not acceptable, hopefully we haven’t any developing health issues because of it, it is a leading cause of lung cancer. So we will mitigate before the air conditioning needs to be used this summer.
It comes up through the below ground walls and floor of the basement, our forced air heating system carries it all over the house. Historically people didn’t have forced air heating, they used stoves, wood or coal, and their houses weren’t well insulated so lots of fresh air travelled through clearing the radon.