Odds and Ends

I haven’t updated my blog for a few days. So here are some bits and pieces, none of them enough material to justify their own entry.

#Casualties of Winter:

No, this isn’t a weight-challenged person hiding under an old blanket; this is our barbeque cover after protecting the barbeque from being ravaged by the snow. It lasted only one winter. And I can’t even blame the mice for chewing on it. The problem with plastic is that it gets real brittle in the cold and this cover wasn’t meant to be removed during the cold winter months. I do barbeque in the winter, which means I have to take off the cover. Well, this one didn’t survive our last brutal winter. I think for next winter I’ll look for a cover made from canvas. If I can find one.

#The Postal Service:

I just mailed a letter to my aunt in Germany for Easter. I paid $2.50 cents postage. That's what it costs now to mail letters overseas. It's a good thing there aren't any other relatives I have to write to. I couldn't afford it. With these high prices it is no wonder our postal service can’t and won’t survive. Who in their right mind wants to spend that kind of money to mail a letter or a postcard? If you want customer you have to bring down the price and not raise it. Volume is the key. You can’t make all your money on one item. There will never be any repeat customers. Smart business owners know this. I guess, the people who run Canada Post are not overly smart, like most of our politicians, be they local, provincial, or federal. Their motto: If you can’t make ends meet and you need more money, just raise the taxes, never mind giving good service or cutting down on expenses, like huge salaries, bonuses, benefits, expense accounts, pensions and so fort.

Casualties of Time:

My aunt is the only one I still send letters to, because everything else I do with email. She is in her nineties and the only living aunt I still have. She is in a home now and has no access to a computer or even an interest in such a thing. Aside from the only surviving aunt she also happens to be my Godmother. I’ve kept in contact with her ever since I came to Canada over fifty years ago. She used to phone me on a regular basis and we used to talk for an hour sometimes. She’s been in a home since 2008 and now she doesn’t call anymore, in fact, she doesn’t even answer my letters. However, I know that she enjoys receiving them. My cousin in Germany, who visits her, told me that. In fact, she’s the one who reads the letters to her, because my aunt's eyes are failing her. So I keep on writing, but I miss talking with her and getting her letters. 2008 was the last time I saw her. It probably was the last time. Time can be so cruel.

 

More casualties:

When we came back from our holiday in Cuba, I found most of my #Guppies along with four catfish in one of the aquariums dead or gasping for air. It was the tank in which I was breeding guppies for their beautiful red tails. I found only a few survivors, small females mostly. All the adult males were dead. I transferred the few survivors into another tank, where some of them still died. What happened: The heater got stuck and heated the water to nearly 100 F. Fortunately, before we left for our holiday, I transferred a large number of the adult males into my one hundred gallon tank. Had I not done that, the loss would have been even more devastating.

I cleaned out the tank, the gravel and the glass, and set it up new with a different heater. It seems okay now and I will transfer most of the young #Wagtail Platys from their breeding tank into this one. The #Platys are doing well, but I’ve lost three of the adults, partly because that tank was overgrown with some hair algae, which is a wonderful medium to provide cover for newly hatched fry, but it can become a nuisance if not kept under control. I cleaned up that tank also and the fish are much happier. I found a new batch of fry hiding in the plants this morning, so it’s time to move the others. There are at least fifty in there. You can’t really count them.

I’m going to throw out most if not all my old heaters. I only have five tanks now and three heaters are new. I may replace the other two also. I used to have thirty plus tanks at one time (about 40 years ago), when I was active in the Winnipeg Aquarium Society. Which means all those heaters I still have are that old. Sometimes it is best to replace old stuff with new things. I found out the hard way that in the long run it is cheaper and less heart wrenching to throw out old equipment. A lesson to be learned.

That’s it for now. I got longer than planned. Ahh, sometimes I just can’t stop writing. It’s my passion.