It was a beautiful spring week although there were mornings of fog, the temperature was right at freezing or above in the daytime. When I saw the sun I liked it. The end of August will be full of rain. We have had this before. Fellow farmers refer to it as monsoon August. This year has been most unusual because of the tremendous amount of snow. I have also noted that the relative humidity has been consistently high all winter. Most unusual.
On the home front, I had Alvin's boys out today and they got the straw chopper reassembled. It now has a solid shaft from one side to the other. I have no idea how it lasted that long with two stub shafts just welded in. Oompapa engineering I would say. Tomorrow we have to do the auger and get it away from the front of the shop. We started on the auger today but it was resisting arrest and not co-operating. I got out my brand new quarter inch roll pin punch out of hiding from Da Devil. Holding it with a vice-grip so I didn't smack my fingers and using my nice square headed hammer, I pounded on the roll pin. It didn't move. I hit it harder. It still didn't move. I pounded on the punch until I bent my brand new roll pin punch. Saying bad words under my breath, I took the boys home. Tomorrow the sprocket is going to become friendly with the cutting torch and one way or the other that pin is coming out. We will see how tough it is when it's all cherry red. I'll teach it not to resist me and bend my brand new roll pin punch!
With paper work and going to the doctor last week, I never did any outside fixing. Now I will have to get more done. I was wondering what to do about a motor in a tandem truck we have. The motor is done, so while it's not critical to use that truck, I want to see it fixed. I was able to purchase 350 Cummins out of a Ford Louisville truck. The motor in the truck was a little Cat, so I know there will be problems getting everything hooked up. When we have time, like now, we will just make a project out of it. My body is not too good but my brain still works , I think. We will make it work!
I have received an e-mail from Melanie Hankey about Miss Laura Sisley, asking if she was related to a Sister Beatrice Sisley who started the Saskatoon City Hospital? Well, it turns out that she is indeed. Laura is a half-sister to Beatrice. The father, Numa Jules Romain Sisley, was married to Jane Standen and three children were born, Laura being the middle child. The father then remarried Sophia Elizabeth Laurenta Caley and Beatrice was born in 1860, one of four children.
The Lashburn History Book has a good write up about Miss Laura Sisley. She was actually born in Toronto in 1852 and as a child the family moved back to England. She never married and in 1903 she took about a dozen orphan boys from the London slums and brought them to Canada so they could get a better lot in life. They homesteaded just west of Waseca.
Looking up Beatrice Sisley on the Internet, I see she started a private hospital in Saskatoon in 1905. It was the first hospital in Western Canada. In 1906 there was an influenza epidemic in Saskatoon and the little hospital was overrun. It was decided the hospital was too small. The city fathers took it over and built a much bigger hospital. It became what is now the Saskatoon City Hospital .
There was also a website where you could look up the Sisley family tree. The name is French and first appears in the Normandy Invasion in England in 1066. Now either I am not smart enough or I have a very stupid computer because I could not get into the website. I know it's there but when I click on it I get "No-ting' Lots of no-ting's still very interesting but frustrating and time wasting.
Joke of the week: A man was pulled over for running a stop sign. When the cop checked the man's driver license, he said, "you're wearing glasses on your ID and you're not now. I'm going to have to give you a ticket for that." The guy said, "Officer, I have contacts." The cop said, "Look buddy, I don't care who you know, I'm still giving you a ticket anyway."
