Last Post Thread

[Mendalla]

Yeah, school year is winding down, eh. Except for the university kids. They're either done for the summer or already working on their summer courses depending on their program and academic plan. My daughter-in-law has her master's now and is taking the summer off before plunging into her doctorate come Fall.

 

[BethAnne]

Exams for Jr and Sr High start next week.

 

[chansen]

Yep, that family friend I helped get into Mac is finishing up. He is gonna need to learn how to write. He has the summer. I'm skeptical.

His program is a lot of group work. Someone will edit his stuff. His editors have their work cut out for them. At least until he figures it out.

 

[Mendalla]

That seems to be common in the current run of high school students. My daughter-in-law is a TA and she is quite negative about the skillset of the undergrad students she is seeing.

 

[chansen]

We've laughed at how, had he paid consulting fees for the three people who edited his supplemental app, how much it would have cost him.

Half the supplemental apps are probably done with AI these days. At least we took his words, cut some things out, and fixed the remaining. It's his story and his choice of anecdotes and answers. It's not written by me, my wife and his mother. In fact, we had to prevent her from rewriting it completely. Had we written it, it wouldn't have sounded like a student. We must have provided solid advice.

 

[BethAnne]

Writing skills do seem to be sadly lacking in a lot of students.

 

[chansen]

They don't read as much. On average. Writing is about reading. At least at first. Readers can generally write.

He's a good kid. He'll work at it. He doesn't really have a choice.

 

[Luce NDs]

If you don't read would you tend to put down anything that is found beyond your reading skills?

This is ultimately convoluted like some birds in the great deluge ... Turr, and a meal (NFLD) may take a turn about them ... a gift for the starving?

Mire mental capacities will just observe ... as they have no real room for internalizing ... thus enigmas to generate ... massive, irresolvable without some gap formation ... the tough thus has a hole ... like a Klein passage space tunnel ... to lead us back to the way we were ... separate and disparate? Then that concept collapsed leaving another blank and washed state ... like that look on my face when I observe parts of what appears as reality ...

Thus creative urges that are beyond me ... where thought is interred ... genesis as contrary to exegesis? In short what you put into it gives output ... that has sacred content ... given what we don't know but believe we do! Some determinants are thus repulsed and the alternate is also ... cynic of twinned proportion? Doppelgangers ... demiurge ... thus half an urge to depart and a resistance from the master side ... it doesn't welcome intellectual parts either way ...

When such things are grasped it is time to go somewhere fresh ... as if emotionally drained in the process! Literary gentry ... is like wisp ... check out Anil's Ghost and other dreamy creations to amuse what is beyond us ...

Is there more that remains unseen? If you write this down it'll baffle someone ... out there someone will grab it ... the Ahab Syndrome ... it takes 2 legs for a portion of reality to move ... then there's POGO in a wave of background humor ...

How long can it continue bouncing ... diabolical ... bolus? Alternate word ...

 

[BethAnne]

LAST as I still recover from the two trips to Red Deer on Friday.

 

[Mendalla]

Couldn't you just ride the deer back and forth?

 

[BethAnne]

Did I mention that my main plum tree appears to be dead this spring? I knew we had it 10 - 12 years and it only produced fruit the first 2 years and nothing since. Well, I literally just found the receipt for it - we got it in 2013 so it's been in the yard longer than I expected. I will need to find someone willing to take it down for me.

 

[Mendalla]

I will need to find someone willing to take it down for me.

I need to find someone to take down my dead maple. I sent a note to the tree service I have used in the past (oddly, called Ape's Tree Service with a cartoon gorilla as their logo) but they aren't responding so will start searching. I saw their truck recently so I know they are still around. I know at least one other in this area to reach out to.

 

[chansen]

I think i mentioned the monster maple tree at our cottage. It's split into two trunks and a cable has held the two halves together for years. The vertical trunk had a main branch split off years ago and is obviously very rotten with lots of bugs. The other leans over our deck that I built in 2000. There is a difference of opinion between the couple next door, the wife wants to keep it and the husband wants it down. It's great for shade, but it's starting to scare me.

We know a tree guy. His name is "Howie Chainsaw". He's in his 70s. He still climbs trees himself to fell them from the top down. We want him to walk the properties with our neighbours to pick what needs to go before he retires.

The top of a pine tree crashed down a month ago. A big pine took out our roof and damaged two trusses about 16-18 years ago. That was a fun repair job. I don't want that to happen again.

 

[BethAnne]

The only bonus of the fatal fire on my block in 2022 was that all the questionable maples and evergreens that always looked like they would fall in the slightest breeze were all chopped down so the property could be cleaned up (and because many were damaged by fire as close to the house). I didn't have to worry as my place was far enough away, but there were a number of neighbours who would have been directly impacted (literally) if any of the trees did fall.

@chansen Yes, get the guy's opinion before he retires and it's too late.

 

[chansen]

@chansen Yes, get the guy's opinion before he retires and it's too late.

Another neighbour who knows him best is going to call. She went to school with him.

If the maple goes, I'm hopeful the second major trunk has good wood in it. I'd love to make a table or two out of it. I'm sure Howie or someone he knows has a portable sawmill. I have so, so much 2" rough sawn lumber already. But what's one more tree's worth?


I have that stack of 8-14" wide walnut and cherry boards, plus another stack behind it, plus two more further down the shed. All 8-10ft long. Mostly 2", some 1" for charcuterie boards.

Retirement plans.

 

[KayTheCurler]

Did I mention that my main plum tree appears to be dead this spring? I knew we had it 10 - 12 years and it only produced fruit the first 2 years and nothing since. Well, I literally just found the receipt for it - we got it in 2013 so it's been in the yard longer than I expected. I will need to find someone willing to take it down for me.

Our fruit trees were loaded with blossoms this year. Then the wind blew most of them off. If that hadn't happened no doubt they would have frozen!

 

[Mendalla]

Our fruit trees were loaded with blossoms this year.

My crabapple had a good year. It's one of the first trees on my property to drop leaves, often started to lose leaves as early as August. We used to think something was wrong with it. But every year it comes back with another full, beautiful bloom.

 

[BethAnne]

It may be hit or miss if there is any fruit this year as some trees were loaded with blossoms and then the weather turned, and others only had a handful of blossoms and then the drought weeks hit.