Last day of a chickadee

Sadly it was the last day on earth for this chickadee. That's why it was so easy to take a pic of this little guy two summers ago with just a regular old digital camera. The poor guy was so sick he wouldn't even move much when I approached him. Even if I touched him too. Although he did kind of sickly give me a protest chirp. But by the end of the day the poor little guy fell asleep and never woke up again. But before that I placed him high on a near by bush so at least he could have some peace. Cause well my cat would have had him as a snack and well you just don't know what kind of diseases the bird had. In the end I buried the little bird in a pot full of leeks and garlic. I think it grew pretty well the next year. 

Little big flood.

While the other parts of the world were having their own natural disasters including north America mainly with those big and nasty hurricanes and parts of Canada with those fires, we had our own little disaster here too a few weeks ago. So I just had to post this so yeah for once this is fairly new stuff. 
Lately for the past few years we've been having lots of things such as floods here. I forgot about the small one we had last year. I remember that day we went to a mall. Not the one that flooded but another one. I had purchased a black stylish hat that day. This year however we got one of those 100 year old floods. It flooded our basement for a second time since our family has lived in this house. The last time was only a few years ago. I think in 2010 was the last time. I suppose we're now going to have these more often now. Sign of the times I guess. 
So anyhow most of the summer we struggled to get some rain so it ended up fairly dry around here. When we did finally get some substantial rain, boy it really rained. And rained and rained until our naighbourhood began to resemble a system of rivers and ponds. After awhile it started to seep in though a wall in the fruit cellar. Later I noticed that when I checked on our sump pump, it was on non stop and I started to get that panicky feeling of "here we go again". Then it started to bubble up through the drain in the floor and that's when I started to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I'm sure, though out the city this was happening people were probably feeling the same way. I think we were pretty lucky for not having a downstairs toilet which would have probably resulted in sewage in the basement as well. None the less I got as many of our things off the floor as fast as I could on to higher ground while my dad tried to go out to look for tubing for our extra pump. After doing all that I could downstairs, I went outside to the porch and took a few pics of the craziness.  (see pics below post)After taking a few pics a neighbour came over with urgency and asked for assistance. There were many cars getting trapped in the rising water that day and that guy's, van was no exception. So along with a few of the guys and me being the only woman we pushed the van up I guess his driveway to safety. So after a bit of socializing with the neighbours I walked back home. Found out my dad came back home without success. The stores were all sold out of hoses. There was only one way out of this. Compromising. My dad had to Macgyver the feed hose that we used in the fish pond for air and water circulation and use that for our extra pump. It was a bit of a mess considering that thing was all full of long strands of green alga and who knows what else but we had no choice. We hooked up the thing, fed it out one of the closest windows to the main sump pump and pumped away. The water finally started to let up around 7pm in our house and the neighbourhood as well. At its peek we had about 3 to 4 inches of rain water in the basement. It was a long day. Tomorrows day would be just as tedious. Removing wet rugs, placing them outside and the arduous task of re-mopping the floor. I had already done that weeks ago and was not happy about this. We were pretty lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective)over all compared to some of our other neighbours. They had to redo some parts of their soaked basement and its pretty uncertain if insurance would have covered it fairly. (We have pretty lousy insurance coverage here in our humble and normally boring city.) The next day it was pretty evident how the flood impacted everyone in the city with the gargantuan mounds of trash piled high at the end of almost every driveway from flooded basements. To this day, its sill being collected by our diverted garbage and recycling trucks plus extra trucks from Toronto. They finally got to our street just yesterday although they still have the rest of the city to get to. Not easy when only about 10 houses can be cleared of debris at a time before they have to dump the load at some temporary depot. Ironically at our only and last GM plant which closed years ago and was torn down recently. So much for motor city, now rat city, garbage city and a city loaded with lots of sad and grumpy people. No wonder they all want to desperately smoke pot. 
Yup sign of the times.  😒

A view of our flooded park, parking lot and street from my porch. ⇱

 A view of our flooded park, parking lot and street corner from my porch and the corner of our front lawn.
Some guy decided to take a dip in one of the large and apparently deep ponds that formed in the corner of the park. I wonder if he realized that there was a sewer grate there.  ⇱

Our front sidewalk that leads from our porch. You can see the river that was our street. You can see a wake from a passing van. Many people didn't care that they were speeding and that would cause more water to go in peoples houses. ⇱

I liked how the water looked on our trees. Like sparkling diamonds. ⇱

A view from our dining room of the park and street. ⇱

A view from our dining room of the park and street. Another van goes whooshing by. ⇱

A view from my bedroom window. You can see a few cars stuck in the water at the far right. The same spot where me and some guys pushed a van up a drive way. The water was about up to my knees. A few feet worth. ⇱

One step forward 2 steps back

Great news, my small illustrations got accepted at this one illustration place. Yay and that means I’ll be making some much needed cash.

Bad news, my little baby doves died. Sigh….. :( I suspect it was because it might have been the cold night we had yesterday. I found them squashed in the nest, with one of them barely alive. Probably the male as usual tried to keep the other doves out other then his favorite female but then I guess he gave up. They were so close to coming out of the nest, just opened their eyes and had already grown some of their feathers. Sigh….. what can you do. :`(

I think next time I’m in that situation I’ll try to find the surrogate dove parents their own place and hopefully they can succeed.