Things usually happen in threes for me. Those things are all along a similar vein, and might be anything from interesting to unfortunate to magical.
The past week a cycle of three occurred. Three well worn and loved items wore out completely and utterly. The first of the three is my favourite pair of summer pants, a pair of mid length jeans. I’ve been wearing these for a very long time, I don’t even remember when they were purchased, but I think sometime after 2001. They are wonderful in that they fit comfortably, were easy to wash and wear, were acceptable for public appearances, and my knee brace fit under them without binding and pulling. They are now so well worn that they have become gauze, and have torn. Luckily I found another pair on sale that have the same important features, but they are linen. Linen is wonderful for summer clothing.
The second item that wore out was my everyday pair of sandals. In these shoes I walk miles every day, and even wear them as work boots when we go out to the Camp to clear brush, good for tramping through the rough bush. These shoes are over ten years old, and have seen heavy wear and tear. The uppers have torn beyond repair, but the soles are like new. They are women’s Keen Newport H2 Sandals, I love them and have ordered a new pair.
Speaking of the Camp, I come to the third item that has worn out and needed replacing. Our string trimmer is ten years old, and sees heavy use. It keeps the weed growth at the Camp short, an all day job, which needs to be done frequently if there is adequate rain. This year there was not adequate rain, but on our last trip out the the aging strimmer simply gave up and retired itself. Attila replaced it with a new one.
The weather has been lovely for the last week or so. On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we took ourselves out to the Camp. It was an opportunity to use the new strimmer, and it did a fine job.
We had a lovely time at the Camp. The weather was perfect for working. We had a list of jobs to be done, but only one planned activity was accomplished, strimming the grounds.
Attila had thought to do some work on the roof of the trailer, but once he got up there he discovered a rather angry nest of wasps, whose nest had fallen from one of the trees, they were very dismayed and angry. But even worse, there was also a hornets nest built over the vent for the bathroom. Hornets can be very, very aggressive, so there was no question of working on the roof, they would not share the space. Removing these nests is a job for cold weather.
Attila then thought to saw logs from the dead wood and trees we had collected. The chainsaw would not start. This will need to be fixed before we return to the Camp. That was another planned job that was not accomplished.
So we spent our days at the Camp pulling dead branches and fallen trees into the camping area. Attila sectioned the smaller diameter branches, and I burned the brush all day long.
We had wonderful lunches, cheese and onion sandwiches grilled over the hot coals in the fire pit, accompanied by home canned coleslaw. Burning brush is not only fun, it also makes for some lovely meals.
We were well satisfied with what we accomplished over those two days. There is something revitalizing about spending entire days out under the trees, working hard, resting anytime we felt like it, and eating wonderful food.
It was very quiet at the Camp during our visits. The summer people have returned to their regular lives elsewhere. There were no ATVs roaring up and down the roads, no high speed boat engines echoing across the lake, it was quiet and peaceful. Attila even saw a deer watering near down at our lower swamp.
As we sit under the trees at the Camp, the breeze animating the leaves, the sunlight an ever moving dapple, we are so very grateful for our good luck in having this peaceful patch of mother earth to cherish and visit.
Worldly
Weather
23°C
Date: 2:00 PM EDT Thursday 11 September 2025
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.2 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 22.7°C
Dew point: 12.9°C
Humidity: 54%
Wind: SE 13 km/h
Humidex: 25
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.”
Margaret Mead
1901 – 1978
I agree with the above statement, but in addition I believe anything worth doing must promote a healthy balance with, and within, the world. Not all accurate information is used in humane, balanced, or respectful ways. For me it was never enough just to create accurate information, something I was and am very good at, but that information needed to have great potential for ethical use by humanity.
This might be the first time I noticed what looks like an image icon on your blog. There have been several times I’ve wanted to post a picture. Is that possible now?
Your quote and commentary on the quote were very compelling. Sharing truthful information or just being honest has been something I’ve worked at almost since I can remember, but most especially I’ve worked at that ever since the beginning of the internet. I can remember when I first got on the web in 1993. I started off in newsgroups because that they were the first social media I learned about. I was reading a book about the internet and learned there was a newsgroup called alt.sex, and that’s where I started talking to people on the net. Actually, I spent a lot of time dispelling myths about having sex, getting pregnant, women’s periods, etc.
Now, I mostly have political conversations, but that cycle might be coming to a close for me for now. There doesn’t seem to be much room for truth because so much “red meat” is being thrown into the waters. There’s no room to have a conversation before the next wave brings in new chum and a new direction for those who are trying to move forward.
Teri, one of the software updates must have included it, I didn’t do anything to add it. I will leave it there though, I guess if you post an image we will know that it works!
Sharing truthful information is lost on the majority of people on social media, in my view. It is worth doing though, and I appreciate your efforts. I believe that there are always some individuals who benefit from accurate information, even if we are not aware of them or the effect of sharing accurate information, they are still there, unknown to us, benefiting.
I spend less and less time on social media because of AI and the intense manipulation of information going on there. When I do participate it is to add something to a conversation or query, if I don’t have something useful to offer, I scroll by. Often, to my happy surprise, someone else enters the conversation with helpful feedback, although rare, it is truly wonderful to see.
The Camp always sound wonderful – except for the wasps. I grow really attached to some clothes in particular. Sorry some of your things have reached the end of the road. A friend of mine who’s in technology thinks that the goal is to make humans rely on AI tools so much that we forget how to research and solve problems ourselves. Humanity becomes dumber and AI tools smarter. If you click on the image tab it brings you to your file manager. Clik on an image and pload it. It looks like you can only uloade one image. This is an older pick of my cat Milo.
Sandy, the Camp is such a wonderful place for us, the wasps were the biggest excitement we have had this year. Unfortunately their claim on Grace the trailer cannot be accepted, in the colder weather they will be removed.
I find my attachment to certain items of clothing very comforting. I feel like myself in them, and so I can feel like myself when I am out and about in them.
I agree with your friend, the motives behind all this technology is not one of benevolence, quite the opposite. However smart AI becomes, it will never be human, it will be something else. If it gets smart enough it may just eliminate the elements of humanity that are not balanced, and do not respect mother earth. Who knows where all this is going, but often, historically, humans create the very situations that destroy them. The kind of control that is being sought by some is not truly attainable.
Hello Milo! What a handsome fellow. Ginger thinks so too!
Thanks for outlining how to add a photo, if only one photo per comment is possible, I guess you could make another comment to add another.
Hi Maggie. I’m increasingly apprehensive about the direction we seem to be going. There’s so much more hatred and violence, The US creeps closer t autocracy every day. I love my comfort clothes too. They’re relaxing. I could see some cataclysm involving global warming and militaristic AI tools. There’s an area of AI that is definitely trying to make AI models more human using biometrics. Scary stuff. (Sorry for the gloom and doom). Milo likes Ginger a Lot! Yes I think we can attach a different picture to each new post.
I think we used to be able to edit our posts. Has that gone away?
Sandy, I share your concerns about the state of the world, I feel mostly sad about it. Historically, humans do this. For long periods of time this kind of human self-hatred exists only in small pockets of the social structure, it is endemic, easy to ignore for those unaffected. For short periods of history the self-hatred becomes pandemic, where everyone is impacted and so the tendency becomes well recognized.
We live in interesting times, a Chinese curse that we are all experiencing at this time in human history.
For me, the only way forward in bad times is to “keep calm, and carry on”.
And as Fred Rogers said:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
Sandy, the comment block should display “Edit” for thirty minutes, then it closes and cannot be edited.