Cranberries and opals...

When I was at the lake, the air was full of the smell of cranberries ripening. The leaves may not be turning yet, but fall's coming. There was a frost warning last night. Brrr! My thermostat croaked a couple of months ago. I didn't worry about it 'cuz it's summer, but now it's time. I've called the furnace/water heater folx to come on Friday to do an estimate. I'm going to replace the thermostat (preferably with one that's a little more programmable than the old one), the furnace (with a high-efficiency one), and the water heater (with tankless). Next call is the the eavestrough guys 'cuz the downspout on the east side of the house came down (nope, not again ... I haven't had it fixed since it happened) and the eavestrough on the west side has come away from the house. I suspect some rot in the eaves. Time to check the roof, too. If I have to replace it, I'm going with metal and never doing it again.

Pat's moved to the Stony Plain hospital, closer for his sister and his folx. He's out of treatment options for the cancer. He's got a couple of cracked vertebrae and some broken ribs and a leg that's painful and badly swollen from blood clots. Cancer sucks and cancer treatment sucks as much if not more. Barbara and I went out to see him last Friday at his sister's and had a nice visit. Patty and Jaime are coming in tomorrow from B.C. for a couple of days to see him. I'm looking forward to seeing them, but sure wish it were under other circumstances.

I keep meaning to post about the trip back from San Francisco ... actually, from Vancouver to here ...

We took off a little late and flew out over the ocean to get to altitude ... there was a tug with a bunch of sailboats in tow that looked like a mama duck and a while brood of ducklings ... then we flew over the mountains, which is always pretty cool ... the air was odd, like flying through the heart of an opal ... then we flew over some thin white cloud and there was a bullseye of a double-rainbow with the shadow of the plane in the centre ... every now and then there'd be a break in the cloud framing a mountain lake. I thought about getting my camera out several times but didn't want to look away. The cloud got thicker, but we stayed inside the opal even once the clouds got thick enough that we were in them ... when we popped out of the clouds, the opal effect was gone, but then there was that beautiful wide open prairie tapestry as far as the eye can see. I wasn't the only one on that plane who was a l'il sniffly.

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 13:20
Hours of dark: 10:00ish
Sunrise: 6:52 am
Sunset: 8:12 pm
Start of twilight: 6:16 am
End of twilight: 8:48 pm

Current weather: Mostly Clear. 18°C (64°F), humidity 39%, wind W 3.2 km/h (2 mph.), barometer 30.15 in. Hg

Forecast:

Today.. Sunny. High 20°C (68°F).
Tonight.. Clear. Low 2°C (36°F) with risk of frost.
Wednesday.. Sunny. High 21°C (70°F).
Thursday.. Cloudy. Low 4°C (39°F). High 15°C (59°F).
Friday.. Cloudy with 30% chance of showers. Low 3°C (37°F). High 15°C (59°F).
Saturday.. Sunny. Low 3°C (37°F). High 15°C (59°F).
Normals for the period.. Low 5°C (41°F). High 18°C (64°F).