Got back from up to the Straits Friday after a couple nights stay at Forteau. I stayed at the Florian Hotel for ENR department meetings. It was good. I got to meet everyone in the department. We went on a tour of Point Amour Lighthouse. I liked that. Someone saw some Orcas from up in the lighthouse but I missed it. And the Capelin was rolling in on the beaches at L'Anse au Clair, Forteau and L'Anse au Loup. I wish the kids could have been there.
The price of gas is gone way up.
Locked down again! We are back to Alert Level 5. All non essential businesses and services are to close. Schools are closing and will switch to online learning. Julie will be coming home. What distresses me most though is the kids. They won't be able to hang out with their friends.
There was an outbreak in the St. John's and Avalon area which quickly spread. 50 cases one day when there were normally only 1-4 cases, 100 the next and 50 again yesterday. Turns out the reason why it spread so fast is was that it was the new more contagious variant B117, first detected in the UK.
I was supposed to go on a Ranger outing this morning but that was cancelled. They left yesterday morning but broke camp and came home this morning. A couple Rangers were supposed to come get me this morning.
Phone and Internet and cell service were restored about 24 hours after it went. There was a break in the fibre line up around Red Bay, which is something I don't understand because we use microwave towers for our communications. Service was lost right from Rigolet down to Mary's Harbour.
We are having normal winter temperatures now. For a long time we were having spring like temperatures and wet weather.
My friend PJ had a stroke. He is only about a year older than me.
There were 6 or 7 poles snapped off after that ice storm, thousands of trees either bent over or snapped off. I saw 4 or more inches of ice covering some of the trees up on the hill where the microwave towers are. The towers are on backup power. If that goes no internet, phone or cell services.
This winter is turning out to be way warmer than it normal. Even up in the high Arctic in places like Iqaluit is 10 or 20 degrees warmer than normal. Half way around the world over in Siberia it is the opposite with much colder temperatures than is normal.
Made another trip to Goose Bay and back. For First Aid training this time. The wife stayed with me while I was there this time. Friday night I did not get a good sleep. There were some people next door drinking all night and into next morning. What a racket, bawling and banging. The cops were called 2 or 3 times. Gary Bird, who just had back surgery, and his girlfriend were sleeping below them. They didn't get any sleep either.
Quite the weather we had last week. We had four days of freezing rain. An awful lot of trees either bent or broken, probably thousands, mostly Juniper, Birch and Willows. I went up on the Base(everyone calls the hill where the microwave towers are "the Base" because there used to be an American manned radar station there, part of the Pinetree Line) for a look Saturday. Some places ALL the trees were bent over and there was 4 inches or more of built up ice on a lot of the trees. There were several poles broke off going to the microwave towers. Power was cut in order to replace the poles. They are on back up generator power now, if not then we would have lost phones and internet. We were real lucky we never lost power to the whole town.
We are in the midst of another warm wet spell. Pouring rain, freezing rain today and yesterday. All the trees are bent over, some broken from the weight of the ice. School was cancelled today because it was too slippery. Weather is not fit.
Absolute chaos on Capitol Hill yesterday. 4 people died, one was shot. There was a huge disparity in these riots and the BLM movement with some people saying if it were black people there would have been mass casualties. Donald Trump fomented the violence. His actions were so dastardly that there is talk of removing him from office under the 25th Amendment. He has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Instagram for the remainder of his presidency.
The kids had a good Christmas. They both got a cell phone and James got a brand new Ski-Doo, courtesy of his Nan and Pop. James don't jump for joy or show emotion like other kids but I could tell he was beaming.
It is really warm. Plus 8 degrees Celsius on December 26 and it doesn't look like it is going to cool off much over the next week. I hope we don't have another winter like we did 11 or 12 years ago when we had spring instead of winter.
