Yes, it’s been a while since the last update, but a lot has been happening weatherwise and I was waiting for the outcome of ‘The Canadian Open’ yesterday - more on that a little later!! The end of May has some extremely hot and dry weather … and lots of wild fires 
. Two weeks ago Nova Scotia had 10 wild fires out of control … Tantallon (an outside subdivision of Halifax) had 200 buildings (150 homes) destroyed and had over seventeen thousand evacuated; Barrington Lake (close to Shelburne) had over one hundred buildings destroyed and about fifteen hundred evacuated – it was the largest wildfire in Nova Scotia’s history. Luckily the last week had lots of rain that was able to eventually get the fires under control. Fires in Quebec and Northern Ontario caused most of the east coast to be extremely smoky with poor air quality conditions during the past week. It was so bad, cities like New York and Philadelphia had extremely poor visibility and warnings were given telling people to stay inside if they could or wear masks if they couldn’t. We’ve had rain here in Southern Ontario only once in the last three weeks . The yard and lawn at home are parched and the area is under a fire ban. However, this week is supposed to be pretty wet and rainy so hopefully the grass can recover 
.
The war in Ukraine is still dragging on, and Ukraine has started their offensive taking back area around Bahkmut and Kherson. However, as I predicted back in October, the Russians went ahead and blew up a dam on the Dnipro flooding the whole area and forcing about 7 thousand to evacuate it’s become a bit of an ecological disaster. Ukraine has received all the armament and weaponry promised by the NATO countries so hopefully they can start retaking areas near Kherson and Bakhmut. There is also a plan to arm Ukraine with F-15 fighter jets that they have been asking for for months and once they get them it should change Russia’s Oh, and as I have said before; have someone kill Putin … that man is insane.
… We are cooking meals as always … We’ve had beef and chicken curries; chicken and steak salads, lots of pasta and meat sauces, meat balls … both with marinara sauce and Scandinavian style; lots of steaks, sausages, and burgers; Beef Bourguignon; Montreal Smoked Meat (homemade); and coming up soon, Smoked Brisket Chili!! .
We finished ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 – maybe the final season, but there was a teaser the other night that it will come back – probably one of the best series we have ever seen. Finished ‘Better Call Saul’ – definitely up there in the top 5 ever. We watched Bob Odenkirk’s (Saul) new series ‘Lucky Hank’ – took about 3 episodes to get into it, but the last 5 episodes were excellent. No word yet whether there will be a Season 2. We’ve finished watching the final season of ‘Mrs. Maisel’ … I found it confusing and not very well done. We watched ‘Shrinking’, a Prime series about psychiatrists with their own issues, it’s actually pretty good. We started watching Season 2 of ‘The Lake’ … a comedy series set in Canada about summer cottagers … it’s pretty funny and kind of a combination of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘Meatballs’. On the European Netflix side I watched ‘Rough Diamonds’ – a Belgian series about a Hasidic Jewish family in Antwerp involved in diamonds and drugs; and ‘Black Butterflies’ – a French series about cold cases being investigated about serial killers in the ‘70’s, and the writer who is interviewing one of the killers. I watched ‘Turn Of The Tide’, a Portuguese series about a shipment of cocaine that lands in an impoverished town in the Azores – fairly predictable but with lots of great scenery filmed around the islands. I also watched and finished ‘Muted’ – a Spanish series about the ‘Balcony Killer’ who killed his parents six years ago and has been paroled to determine whether he has reformed or not. He is unknowingly under constant surveillance by a psychiatric and police team who monitor him everywhere trying to determine why, or if he even did, kill his parents.
On the NHL front – Both Toronto and Seattle failed to make the conference finals . Florida Panthers defeated Carolina Hurricanes in 4 and were off to the Stanley Cup final against Las Vegas. As Florida is now down three games to one it’s pretty much Vegas to win the cup, possibly tonight.
On to golf … Canadians weren’t doing so much better over the last couple of weeks… they get close on the first or second day to the leaders … and then choke horribly on the last two days . The sad part is that there are about 5 of them in the top 50 Fedex spots but how long they will remain there is going to be a problem unless they can concentrate and finish off a tournament properly. Last week was ‘The Memorial Tournament’ in Ohio – only one Canadian made the cut – Taylor Pendrith – and he finished almost dead last. This week is the ‘RBC Canadian Open’ at the Oakdale Country Club– which a Canadian hasn’t won since 1956 … 21 Canadians competing out of a field of 156 … and 8 Canadians made the cut. Corey Connors, Adam Hadwin, and Nick Taylor were doing really well (Taylor set the course record at 63 on the third round ) … and yesterday all three ended up in the top 20!! Connors ended up tied for 20th, Hadwin tied for 11th, and Taylor ..... won on the fourth playoff hole against Tommy Fleetwood with a 72 foot putt for eagle!! The streak has been broken, Taylor goes up to 6th place in the Fedex points, wins $1.62M U.S., and gets exemptions to the U.S. Open next week and The Masters next year!! It was a pretty exciting match!!
NFL news – not a lot going on except OTA’s; the new rookies in Seattle seem to be doing well and the team looks great – so maybe the Superbowl??
Have a great and safe week … pray for Ukraine … we will see you in a bit!!