Today is Jean Baptiste Day ... if you don't live in Quebec you may never have heard of this holiday ... but when I was a Quebec teacher it was special because it meant a day off in June ... and it means that many things halt today ... including the blasting and hammering and other noise on the lake.
I had intended to go into town today to run some errands and escape the noise, but now I am reveling in silence and even if it is grey and misty after last night's downpour, it is still a lovely place to be.
Yesterday afternoon after the workers quit, there were a few minor landslides and one small tree tumbled down but not all the way onto the road. But after the earthquake and the weekend's more impressive slides, these were hardly noteworthy. Kenya, however, still regards the other side of the lake as a menace and refuses to leave the relative safety of the house ... and complains when I stay down on the deck. "Can't you see that's dangerous?" she whines, and no amount of cajoling will induce her to join me.
When no one showed up at 7 a.m., I thought perhaps they were not working because of the dampness of the earth, that the rain might have created a more hazardous situation ... but I think it is just that Jean Baptiste Day is a good day to sleep in, especially if you went home and had a few beers to calm your nerves after the earthquake.
If I thought it sounded and felt like dynamite, what must have gone through the minds of those men who had been working in such close proximity to actual dynamite for a few days?
I may just have a lazy day and take Kenya for a long walk. She needs more exercise than she has been getting since the blasting started.
And tomorrow morning, if the machine all rev up at 7 a.m., I will head away from the hills and into Ottawa. I want to get a swiss chard plant because I have uprooted one of my renegade nasturtiums and the chard seeds I planted have not done much of anything yet. I also need a hoe for the other gardens.
Tomorrow my plumber is coming in the afternoon He will replace the ultraviolet light and get my system working properly again because the municipality phoned yesterday to tell me that I have fecal coliforms in my water supply. Funny I haven't been ill ... maybe I am immune to all kinds of fecal matter!
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3 comments:
I left a comment re your post yesterday -- don't know if you check further down.
I, too, cherish the weekends when the OUR jackhammering guys are off work. (By the way, they didn't feel the earthquake, but the manager of The Highlands, when it hit thought the sound was a garage floor collapsing. It is made up of 5 floors -- and ran to the garage entrance to look.)
What was the count for your water?
Barbara: I would bet that everyone heard that sound and experienced the quake differently ... and always in line with their own experiences.
Deb: I just got a phone message telling me to boil my water ... the actual report will come by email. So I don't know the actual count yet. But the plumber took my ultraviolet light away yesterday to replace it and had to order it. In the meantime I have shocked the system with javex (and ruined my favourite blouse while doing it) and now the water is clean enough for most uses just not for drinking. The new bulb will be installed next week ... Wednesday or Thursday.
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