Awesome Knife

I’m falling in love with gardening and have been searching for gardening tools. I needed something to weed between the paving stones out back. Found this hook knife at Home Depot and it works perfectly for this. It’s also great for general weeding as you can twist the knife to get the roots out. Thanks for joining me at Elizareviews!

I forgot to mention something in yesterday’s blog about our flight to Hanover on Sunday.  While we were nomming our amazing steak burgers, I noticed a cute little grasshopper hanging upside-down in a spider web.  I pulled him off and had to gently pick all of the web that was tangled around him.  Little Gomer was able to frolic around for another day!

Here is a link to some great pictures taken at the Hanover fly-in.

Today’s symptoms: I felt quite good and loved every minute of it! Paws crossed it lasts!

First Fly-In This Year

Due to the current situation, Mike and I have only been flying around locally.  We often like to fly to different airports for breakfast or pilot gatherings.  During the decent weather, there are many fly-ins we enjoy attending.  Today, we joined the Trillium Flyers up at the Hanover (Saugeen Municipal) Airport for a steak on a bun lunch and fundraiser for Hope Air.  Despite the clouds, it was a smooth ride there….ahhhhhh…..

When we were about thirty minutes away from the airport, we switched over to their frequency.  We couldn’t believe the amount of traffic landing there.  They wanted people there by 11:15 and at the rate I was going, we were going to be there around 11:05.  I slowed down a bit so we would arrive a bit closer to 11:15, and hopefully the traffic would die down by then.  It worked perfectly.  Once we were over Hanover, there were no other planes calling in.  It’s always fun to land with a bunch of planes in the circuit, but it was nice not to have to worry about a flock of planes ahead of and behind me.

We parked and got Vyctor all snuggly in a parking spot:

We ran into a few people we knew, which was really nice. Most folks were wearing masks and trying to stay safe.  Once food was ready, we sauntered over to the line, to claim a delicious steak on a bun.  It was cooked perfectly – tres delicious!

The weather was perfect, with a nice cool breeze.  This certainly helped with the amazing turnout for this event:

I’m so happy to have learned about this group of enthusiastic pilots, so hopefully we can attend more of their events soon.

The flight home was nice.  We passed over the rather busy IKEA and Mapleview Mall in Burlington:

Next, we were coming in over downtown St. Catharines, to land at the Niagara District Airport, which you can see just past the Welland Canal:

Once home, we decided to work on some house stuff.  I have a suggestion for anyone considering getting Sphynx cats – make sure you buy a good carpet cleaner!  Despite washing them at least once a week, they still manage to leave brown grease spots on the carpets.  Mya stayed close to the warm air, venting from the machine:

It felt good to be productive, as there is still so much we want to do with the house.  We were supposed to order our paint for the basement, but it seems everything else got in the way.  There’s always tomorrow.

Today’s symptoms:  This past week wasn’t the best.  I felt really run down, drained and just overall blah.  Things started to improve on Friday and I was so relieved to be feeling better today.  I’m glad we didn’t have to cancel our flight for today.  Now I just need it to stay this way!

How Do I Land This Thing?

Mike, me and a slew of other people decided to take advantage of the perfect weather this morning and go for a flight.  Perfect day for students due to the lack of wind:

When I fly by myself, I always like a nice windy, bumpy ride, but I prefer it as calm as possible when I have passengers.

We traveled along the Welland Canal as we headed south to Lake Erie:

The beaches were quite active along the Lake Erie shoreline.  Buffalo, NY was straight ahead of us, before we made a 90 degree turn to the north.  It’s still so weird to see the almost empty bridges between Canada and the US.  Here is customs at the Peace Bridge:

We did a low and over at my aviation mechanic’s private grass strip:

The Niagara Outlet Mall was fairly busy.  I won’t be going to a mall until everything is back to “normal” and I’m not sure what the rules are around them:

No aerobatics today.  As we were coming back to the Niagara District Airport (CYSN), I questioned Mike if I should land shiny side up or down?

Fortunately, I figured it out by the time I was on final.  Once landed, we gracefully taxied back to the apron to park.

Back home, I decided to do some gardening.  I met this little fella, whom I named Murray the Mantis:

Isn’t he cute?

I wanted to keep him as a pet, but decided he would be happier in his natural habitat.

I’m sure the kitties would have had no issue with him.  They are all so gentle with their little brother, Peanut:

They’re more interested in their treat dispensing mouse:

Today’s symptoms: I felt quite good.  I did too much gardening last weekend (in the heat, too) and paid the price for three days.  More fatigued, bad headaches and all the other MS symptoms were worse.  This typically happens when I push myself too much physically, but sometimes it’s worth it.  When I’m feeling good, I want to take advantage of every second, even if that means I’ll feel cruddy for the following few days.  This disease is so unpredictable – I can totally relax all day then have a good night but still wake up feeling horrible.  That’s why I’m so grateful for my decent days and try to utilize every drop of energy I have.

Stay safe and positive!