SEMYON GRIGORYEV/AFP/Getty Images    A handout photo taken on May 13, 2013, and provided by the Yakutsk-based Northeastern Federal University, shows a researcher working near a carcass of a female mammoth found on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. Russian scientists claimed Wednesday they have discovered blood in the carcass of a woolly mammoth, adding that the rare find could boost their chances of cloning the prehistoric animal.

Good to hear, now and again, increasingly rare news of useful importance to the world of science coming out of Russia. It is more than a little dispiriting to read about the corruption of Vladimir Putin, his personal stakes and immense wealth in the country's energy giant, Rosneft, and his various sumptuous mansions built courtesy of the Russian taxpayer, let alone his sale of advanced, powerful military hardware to the murderous regime of Syria.

Speaking of Sochi, and the upcoming 2014 winter Olympics which has sent Russia off in a frenzy of infrastructure building to meet the challenge of hosting the Olympics in a manner that meant to convince the world of Russia's might and prominence in the world as a still-lingering world power, the news that corruption on a grand scale has taken place there, should arrest the attention of Russians, aghast over the waste of $30-billion into the pockets of corrupt officials, but likely will not.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, listens to Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for Sochi 2014, during a February summit. (Alexei Druzhinin/RIA-Novosti/Associated Press )

Oh, and there is also the trifling matter of Kremlin-and-Putin-accusing assassinated journalists, and the charges brought against former energy entrepreneur Mikhail Khodorovsky, jailed, while Putin raided Yukos and absorbed it into his own holdings. Ample evidence, if any was needed, that even one of the wealthiest men in the world can be brought low and deprived of all he owns if he comes afoul of an scheming, hubris-ridden tyrant.

Russian science and its scientists are as enterprising and brilliant as those of any other nation, and then some, and that does go some way to restoring a certain level of trust in the country itself, if not in so many of its its leaders, and the bulk of Russians who appreciate being led by one of their traditional 'strongmen'; brutal, anti-human-rights oppressors. There is the commendable collaboration by Russian astrophysicists and astronauts with that of the international space community.

A kind of sane balancing, it could be said, lingering yet under the heel of Vladimir Putin. Enough of him, though. The recent discovery by Russian scientists of a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass -- yes, yet another one -- this one intact to an amazing degree, has focused world attention on Russia's far frozen north. The carcass, found on an island in the Arctic Ocean, which is hastening its opening due to the melting of great ice masses, was discovered with muscle tissue in perfect condition.

"The fragments of muscle tissues, which we've found out of the body, have a natural red colour of fresh meat", explained Semyon Grigoryev, head of the Mammoth Museum and leader of the expedition into the Lyakhovsky Islands off the coast of Siberia. Moreover, it was discovered that within the carcass lay liquid blood; nature may have equipped those mammals with a natural source of de-icer to help them survive the glacial conditions that prevailed.

"The blood is very dark, it was found  in ice cavities below the belly and when we broke these cavities with a poll pick, the blood came running out", Mr. Grigoryev explained, in a statement released by the North-Eastern Federal University, in Yakutsk. Those mammoths were thought to have lived until ten thousand years ago, though the scientific world seems to believe they may have lived a little longer in Siberia.

The fluid blood may lead to the potential of cloning the animal if living cells can be successfully extracted for use. Fascinating. Science and its curiosities. But nothing, whatever, exceeds the exploratory, research curiosity of a scientist's imagination. The bronze figures of woolly mammoths that often stand fronting national museums of science would likely suffice to fuel most peoples' imaginations.

Those were impertinent questions I asked of him, and he obliged by responding. Unfair, given our positions, since he was providing a service to me and clearly courtesy to clients is an overwhelming obligation in that situation, particularly in that profession. He was prepared to look beyond a perfect stranger asking questions of him of a personal nature. But then...

In providing his professional expertise in service to me he had asked the same kind of questions. Granted, He was young and I was old. He did that mental shrug over the 'wisdom' of the elderly. I told him straightforwardly that my querying of him reflected a perceived entitlement of the old to presume that their years gave them a kind of immunity to the normal social contract of courtesy. He laughed.

He had help with his hair, he responded. Another hairdresser shaved the sides and back for him. He looked after the rest. 'The rest was a super-abundance of very well behaved platinum-coloured curly locks suspended at the top of his cranium. He had a quite long face, with regular, even exquisite features, perfect in their equilibrium. And a bright, accommodating smile. He was also very tall, almost skeletal, moving with exaggerated semi-poses.

And he was cutting and shaping my hair. At a conservative estimate it has been 35 years since I last sought the services of a hairdresser. All those years I've been taking scissors in hand, consulting a mirror and snipping away. But at my age...never mind. In any event, about three months ago I suddenly decided to snip no more. I would allow my hair to grow. I had become too diligent in cutting it, and it was far, far too short and unattractive.

And had now reached the point where vigorous growth had resulted in a headful of hair responsive to the elements. My hair is naturally curly, robust, plentiful and usually in bad temper, adamantly refusing to obey my plaintive commands. Warm, humid atmospheric conditions particularly challenge any resemblance to neat and orderly, my hair becoming a frizz of silver-grey.

Corey, my young and vibrant hairmesser-for-the-day took my hair in capable stride. I ended up with a semi-Flapper haircut, and was pleased, except when the face looking back at me assumed a gigantic resemblance to my late mother who sometimes wore her hair this way; hers was straight, plentiful and short.

When I caught up with my husband he looked at me in such a startled manner that I was certain the effect was anything but pleasing to him. He said I looked so different that we could have passed one another on the street and he wouldn't have realized it was me. But he became genuinely effusive in his admiration for how I now look.

I forbore from washing my hair this morning; highly unusual. Another thing: I've a dreadful ache at the back of my neck, attributable to the most uncomfortable position I was exposed to when Corey was washing my hair. He had helpfully brought me a cushion to sit on, hoping it would elevate me enough to reduce discomfort.

This is a high-end, technically and stylistically modern salon which their pricing reflects. One might assume that ergonomic work stations would be a requirement, for the comfort of the clients as well as the functionality of the staff.

We simply cannot understand the dearth of squirrels. Where are they all? The ravine, to which we devote so much of our outdoor time each day seems mysteriously devoid of their presence, and we find this incredibly puzzling. There are some days when, throughout the course of our hour-and-a-half ramble through the woods, we see none at all. Other days when some appear, but not nearly resembling former numbers.

Where once, in the winter, we would see mostly red squirrels with the black and the grey in short supply as they hunkered down from the wind, the icy-cold, this winter we saw black and grey squirrels but no red ones. Now that spring has returned we've seen a scant few red squirrels, but few is the operative word here. Not only is it the operative word for the red squirrels, but we tend to see black and grey squirrels few and far between in numbers, as well.

Yet, on the other hand, the peanuts that I put out in the usual cache-places day by day are never left; if we happen to round about the same portion of the trail, the peanuts are gone. True, crows have a tendency to watch and to follow us and to take advantage of the offerings; they recognize us and are not shy about helping themselves. But for the most part, it is the squirrels who know where all their treat places are, and avail themselves of the peanuts.

We do occasionally see them doing just that. And we still have incidents where some of the bolder squirrels will approach us directly, waiting for an especially large peanut to be thrown to them. Still, the numbers must be telling us something. I've looked online to try to see whether they're being plagued with some kind of virus decimating their numbers, but there was nothing.

There was that dreadfully grotesque moment in the winter when we came across a perfectly frozen grey squirrel, arrested in motion right on the trail, quite intact but for its missing head. Try as we might, we were unable to speculate what had happened to it; most likely an unfortunate meeting with a raccoon. During today's walk we came across someone we've known casually for many years and he informed us that early last week his eye was caught by an unusual sight.

Hanging out of a hole in a tree, situated quite high up, there was a half-carcase of a black squirrel. We know there is a pair of nesting owls about somewhere. We've heard them but not yet seen them this year, speculating that they're a pair many people saw often in past years, returned, but more furtive in their presence than in the past. Earlier, another acquaintance had informed us that the nest where the owls had previously bred their offspring had been spotted to be stuffed with twigs, leading to the impression that mischievous squirrels had done that to 'get back' at the owls.

If any of what we've gathered is true, as anthropogenic as it sounds, it would appear that the owls are getting the better of the squirrels, as it were. And much as I think it's thrilling to see and hear the owls and know they're nesting in our neck of the woods, so to speak, I'd rather they didn't if it means they're intent on cleaning the ravine out of its squirrel population.

"The phenomenon has forced maternity wards to purchase stronger operating room tables, extra-wide chairs, heavier scales and other specialized equipment to cope with the growing proportion of dangerously obese pregnant women arriving on labour and delivery wards."

That's the concluding paragraph of a news report with the attention-grabbing headline of Study finds obesity during pregnancy bad for baby's heart. Apart from the very glaring obviousness that extreme weight gain poses a health threat for anyone whose BMI exceeds 30, with abdominal fat in particular causing huge problems for human viscera, there is the issue of difficulties during childbirth among obese women.

A nurse attends to a premature newborn in the neo-natal ward of the Delafontaine hospital in Saint Denis near Paris on March 19, 2013. A mother’s obesity during pregnancy appears to set her baby up for an increased risk of heart attack and stroke when he or she is older, Canadian researchers are reporting.  Photograph by: JOEL SAGET , AFP/Getty Images

And since it is estimated by figures available through Statistics Canada that 23% of women in Canada of child-bearing age are obese, this is a startling and growing problem. It is not that unusual, according to obstetricians reporting on their own experiences, to come across expectant mothers with a BMI of 50. That's not merely overweight, heavy, fat and even obese, it's over-obese to the point of morbidity.

New Canadian-sourced data, as published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to obese expectant mothers giving birth to children whose genes are deleteriously affected by the fact of the mother's obesity, to make them susceptible for increased risk of heart attack and stroke when the offspring mature.

That's not a useful legacy for a mother to leave to her children. No mother would deliberately seek to do such a thing. But it makes sense when someone plans parenthood for their future to look to the state of their health before embarking on that course. Not only for their own state of health, but that of their planned children.

The study undertaken by Laval University researchers in Quebec City sought as recruits twenty women who had undergone stomach-shrinking surgery. They examined the genes of children born to these women before that surgery had taken place as well as the genes of offspring born afterward. Obesity, according to the study's conclusions, somehow alters the womb environment and by extension, a baby's DNA.

Higher rates of serious complications for women and their babies are surfacing as new generations of pregnant women with extreme obesity are increasingly giving birth. 'Fetal programming' appears to be a pattern in these high-risk births with a critical process called methylation, where molecules grip on DNA, acting to turn genes up or down.

"We wanted to know what was going on at the molecular level", explained study co-author Marie-Claude Vohl, of Laval's Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods.

Weight-loss surgery called biliopancreatic bypass, to make for a reduced abdomen for with women presenting with an average body mass index of 45, was shown to affect babies born after that surgery, endowing them with different genes than their siblings born before that surgery took place.

Children born before surgery had compromised 'metabolic' health; increased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. "If they develop a healthier lifestyle, it may compensate for this susceptibility. It may help protect them against the development of several chronic diseases", Dr. Vohl stated placatingly.

However, she added, "What we can see here is the impact of obesity not only on the mother, but the impact of obesity on the next generation."

Three pairs of jeans. He modelled them for me, and I stuck a pin into the back legs of each pair, and then cut off the excess length and pinned each leg up of each pair of jeans. And then asked him to try them on again to ensure I'd measured to the correct length. In each case a little adjustment was required, and then the jeans were briefly set aside.

They would take time to sew, and I had quite a few other routine household matters to attend to. I intended to leave them over a few days, to tackle them on one of my light-duty days around the house.

Yesterday afternoon there he was seated at the kitchen table, beside him my sewing kit, and arranged before him the jeans awaiting my attention. Only they were taking his attention. He was sewing them. I protested. He responded that I have better things to do with my spare time. That it wasn't my job to do such tedious work. That he was capable of sewing up his own jeans' pant legs.

Imagine; I've been labouring under the delusion for the past 58 years that such things did indeed fall under my purview. I was skeptical and also felt somewhat relieved. And he took his time, sewing them all. Had I been doing the sewing I would have had to ask him repeatedly to thread the needle for me when the thread ran out. I reckon roughly four threadings per pair of jeans.

He did a fine job. Perhaps taking inspiration from our younger son who, when he visits, insists on doing his own needlework, to repair a tear, a fallen button. Responding as my husband did on this occasion that he too was perfectly capable of doing such mundane, routine things.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, right, talks to Mayor Iordanis Louizos of Marathon, Greece, as Dimitri Koutras, 13, holds Marathon Torch at the Ottawa City Hall, May 23, 2013.  Photograph by: Jean Levac , Ottawa Citizen/Postmedia News

Let's hear it for the old duffers. This past week a Japanese man of 80 (admittedly a man who had previously proven his penchant for highly unusual physical stunts, having skied down Mount Everest decades earlier) had successfully summitted the world's most famous peak. This, despite having been burdened with some of the health problems that inevitably accompany old age, including heart surgery a scant six months earlier. More power to his determination and elderly spunk.

Photo: Ottawa Citizen   Bernice Wills, 88, is participating in the 10K walk at the upcoming Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend on Saturday, May 25, 2013.

This is the week-end that Ottawa Race Weekend occurs. A special emphasis this year on safety and security hasn't dampened racers' enthusiasm, despite the dreadful occurrence at the Boston Marathon, though that special emphasis on safety and security has obviously emanated from that terrorist attack. There are some elite names in competitors listed for the week-end, big on runners from Ethiopia and Kenya who have competed in previous marathons both in Ottawa and elsewhere; they tend to walk away with the titles.

Four generations of of Melanie Dompierre’s family is participating in Ottawa Race Weekend. From left, Elisabeth Rigden, (daughter), Melanie Dompierre, Jeannette Groulx (grandmother) and Rachel Groulx (mother). Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington , Ottawa Citizen

 

But among the competitors, or to put it more realistically, simply 'runners' are those who are octogenarians. Some compete or run in memory of loved ones who have succumbed to the devastating effects of dread diseases like cancer, stroke and heart attack. Among them whole families or spouses in memory of those they've lost. Some run for causes like funding research into diabetes.

Some who run in Ottawa go on to run elsewhere; Australia, the United States, Iceland, Brazil, even the Great Wall Marathon in China, and the Antarctic Ice Marathon, they are so utterly zealous about what they do.

El Hassan El Abassi won with a personal best time of 27 minutes 36.6 seconds. Photograph by: Ashley Fraser, The Ottawa Citizen

Able-bodied and those with disabling conditions alike, they run because they feel compelled to, including people without eyesight, determined to make their mark as well as to demonstrate that despite their physical deficit, they are still capable of performing normally.

Viola Turner, 80, has run the 10K for the past nine years in tribute to her late husband, Alan. Photo: Ottawa Citizen

This year an 80-year-old woman who has run the 10K event for the past nine years in tribute to her husband, runs again. An 80-year-old man who began running after age 60 will run the half-marathon on Sunday. And an 88-year-old woman will run alongside her daughter-in-law and granddaughter in the 10K walk, her ninth year of such participation.

Tony Caldwell/Ottawa Sun

I really should have known better. What transpired because I should have known better, was mildly embarrassing. Usually the weekly food shopping runs to between $100 to $130. I always have a minimum of $160 with me, and to augment that, in case the food bill runs higher which it rarely does, I carry another fifteen dollars in bills and change. There's always a total of number of items selected at the bottom of the cash register receipt and it hovers around the 50-item mark.

We don't like using debit or credit cards, vastly preferring to pay cash for things that we purchase retail, including our grocery shopping.

Yesterday I went a little bonkers, I suppose. Two things happened; I didn't bother taking with me more than the usual $160 in cash, other than roughly $6 in change. And there were quite a few items on sale I thought it best to 'stock up' on, along with other items that were expensive, but which we'd seemed to run out of. I ended up unheedingly shoving more into my shopping cart than I had cash for.

So when the total turned out to be $173 for yesterday's supermarket shopping, I was a trifle disconcerted. I knew that if I left the large bag stuffed full of tinned and packaged food that I always deposit for the Food Bank I'd have more than enough to pay for our week's groceries with me. But that wasn't an option. I wasn't prepared to sacrifice that weekly offering just because I was sloppy in my payment preparation for food.

So I had to leave my cart piled high with the food I'd bought, close to the cashier who'd accommodatingly run them all through, given me the opportunity to pack them into our three large containers that fit nicely into the shopping cart, and rush out to the parking lot where my husband sat awaiting my exit, keeping our little dog Riley company. Extracting an extra $20 from him I was able to claim the week's shopping, and deposit the food bank's offering from us.

And apologize to the patient cashier for slowing her busy day down and inconveniencing her as I had done. I complicate things for those cashiers as it is, having habituated myself to placing all the food bank items into a bag as I'm shopping, having them run the items through so I can be charged for them, and then obliging them to re-pack those items into the bag that I deposit into the Food Bank collection cage.

They're amenable and gracious, and as helpful as they can be.

One of those mornings when you feel completely justified in late lazing about in bed, since there it's snug and warm and comfortable and outside it's dark, cold and sodden, rain urgently knocking at the bedroom windows, wanting to get in beside you in the bed, while you'd far prefer it to be just you two. So you take your time and later rather than sooner get up to meet the new day.

It's an unmistakable clone of the previous days; so overcast you can be forgiven in assuming that some force beyond reckoning has abducted the sky and left in its wake an immense, inverted fish tank from which the well-bred fish have long since escaped, leaving us down below with the gushing water they've evacuated, but not before it's been heavily contaminated by their waste.

But you do drag yourself out of bed because it's long past time. And poor little Riley has to get out from under the covers because it's time that he too arises from his deep night-long sleep. But he's kind of miserable with the cold, and his forlorn face recommends to us that it might be a good idea to put on the gas fireplace where he can relax, absorbing the warmth from it. A warmth that will eventually pervade the entire space, meaning we'd all benefit from it. And here we thought we'd long dispensed with the need for its cheery comfort.

As we have our breakfast we reflect on how completely and remorselessly nature has done one of her famous turnabouts, obviously missing her old companion winter. To award us protesting humans with a month of heavy rains -- all right, not a month, but surely almost a full week where thunderstorms with their delightful sound-and-light shows have been entertaining us and drowning our hopes for a day spent out-of-doors sans rainjackets.

I've really no reason to complain, after all. Id did get all the planting done. The gardens and the garden pots are flourishing. They love the rain. It enables them to establish their root systems. This is a critical time for them to establish themselves, and encouraging to the perennials as well. As for us, it relieves us of the obligation to be vigilant and having to water them continually. The brief periods where the rain relents and the sun emits its warming, life-enhancing rays helps them to dry out briefly before the next wet onslaught; just perfect late-spring growing conditions.

The woods beyond our house, where we peregrinate daily are sodden, the trails have turned back into mush with little ponds here and there newly developed that will most certainly become hosts for mosquito larvae to mature and attempt their feeding forays on both the wildlife and us, but this is nature's usual cycle, and we embrace it all.

Bring it on, bring it all on, it's good to be alive.

It is just not possible to ascribe enough value to our urban forests. The trees that ornament and protect our environment are absolutely critical to our well-being. Eco-systems suffer when trees are absent. And any paved-over environment like a city with its emphasis on the prevalence and reliance on motorized roadways and its de-emphasis on natural green is one that has failed to recognize the primary function and importance of the flora, particularly trees, for our well-being.

Trees are carbon sinks, they give off oxygen while absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide. They cleanse the air we breathe. Above their function in this way they are beautiful growing flora, some of which species can grow for hundreds, even thousands of years. They shelter us, their harvesting produces lumber that is used in manifold ways from building homes to producing wood pulp for use in newspapers, books, magazines, all adding to the quality of our lives.

In Ottawa, the urban forest is 25% represented by ash trees, and ash trees have, for the last few years, come under threat by the ash tree borer. The trees that live serenely among us, allowing us to breathe healthily, satisfying our aesthetic with their large green, cooling presence, and which comprise such a large portion of our growing tree stock are under threat. And by extension, so are we.

• In the Netherlands studies have shown that people in areas with more greenery suffered lower rates of a multitude of health problems, and in particular anxiety experienced by children.
• Children living in New York City in areas with greater numbers of trees thriving on the streets appear less likely to suffer from asthma.
• Researchers in Portland, Oregon, found that pregnant women living where more tree canopies exist within 50 meters of their homes or living close to open green spaces, are less likely to bear underweight babies.

"You want them because they are beautiful, natural cleaners (of air) and protectors of us. I see a lot of asthma, a lot of emphysema, a lot of pneumonia. It's on the rise and I think it's largely related to pollution", explained Dr. Curtis Lavoie of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. "It's only because we've got amazing drugs out there that we are able to save lives and stop major disaster. But it's still a huge load, and it's parents and kids who suffer."

Drugs, a poor compromise solution to losing our natural immunity to illnesses that plague our communities, and which could be ameliorated if we were more committed to the health of the trees surrounding us. The threat to the urban ash trees posed by the ash borer, the devastation of wonderful old elms by Dutch elm disease, the threats that are posed to pines from pine beetle infestations all impact us deleteriously.

 Many municipalities, like Ottawa, have undertaken programs to emphasize the necessity to plant more trees. And funding set aside in the city budget to mount tree-planting blitzes by the city itself, along with offers to supply trees gratis, to those people who have the room for them on their properties and contact the city for that purpose, have been an assist in ensuring the urban forest does not fail.

The United States began to experience the devastation caused by the emerald ash borer invasion before Canada did. The insect invasion, over the years, has killed tens of millions of trees in 15 states. It arrived in Ottawa by 2008; first detected as an invidious invader in Michigan, in 2002, although it's highly likely its presence went undetected for years previous to the recognition of its deleterious presence.

The U.S. Forest Service undertook a measurement of death rates in 1,300 counties across the 15 states that have experienced ash borer infestations. The infestation represented "an unprecedented opportunity to study the impact of a major change in the natural environment on human health". And, in county after county the scientific investigators found that human death rate rose as those ash trees disappeared from the bio-environment.

The greatest jump in deaths appeared in communities where people had higher-than-average incomes and greater education foundations. Those attributes just happen to be the places where trees appear more prevalently. Still, said lead researcher Geoffrey Donovan, "...We saw the same pattern repeated over and over in counties with very different demographic makeups".

And Ottawa's Dr. Lavoie believes that a new U.S. study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  proves without equivocation that the link between the death of wide tree swaths like the Ash, is responsible for "excess deaths" from heart problems for adults, as well as from lower respiratory problems.

Asthma, he emphasizes, remains the single biggest cause of children being admitted to hospital. And the rate increases as tree die-back occurs. Apart from the fact that trees have a calming effect on people. A stroll in a woodland setting is a deep-seated pleasurable outing, one that makes us more content, happier, at one with nature.

Canada, an immense geographic territory with a diversity and natural resources to match. A land of plentiful lakes and rivers, forests and prairies, mountains and plains, fresh air and outstanding agrarian land.

• Over 25% of the world's never-before harvested forest is in Canada's boreal forest.
• Canada's boreal forest include seven of the world's ten largest blocks of unfragmented forest.
• Canada's boreal forest holds more surface freshwater than any other place on Earth.
• Great Bear Lake in the North West Territories represents the world's largest pristine lake.
• There are millions of lakes and ponds held within Canada's boreal forest.
• The boreal forest has greater numbers of free-flowing, undammed rivers than the rest of North America combined.
• Canada's boreal forest rivers are among the last strongholds of migratory fish such as Pacific salmon swimming up the Stikine, Nass and Skeena rivers into the headwaters of northern British Columbia.
• More than ten million birds a day stream across the Canada-U.S. border in spring to summer in Canada's boreal forest.
• Up to three billion birds will make the trip to Canada's boreal forest during their spring migration.
• The Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, an immense area that runs from Northern Manitiba across Northern Ontario and into Quebec represents one of the largest wetlands on Earth; a massive storehouse of terrestrial carbon.
• With its fish and insects, the boreal forest supports over 300 species of birds.
• Canada's boreal hosts healthy populations of grizzly bears, timber wolves and wolverine.
• Home to migratory caribou herds, some travelling thousands of kilometres from calving grounds in the Canadian tundra to wintering areas in the boreal.
• Unique in nature, landlocked freshwater harbour seals in Quebec's Tursujuq National Park.
• The boreal also holds New World and Old World evolutionary lineages of both caribou and wolves.

We had amassed quite a collection of 'stuff' no longer wanted, outgrown, replaced, redundant, storing it all in the basement, in the garage, and meaning 'some day' to cart it over to the Sally Ann. We had two large bags of clothing to donate, some furniture, a few small appliances, large lighting fixtures, that kind of thing. And books we had no need to retain in our library, having been read by one or the other of us, and not worth keeping, not up to the standards of research material, or classics, or representing anything we couldn't bear to part with.

We are collectors. Of just about everything and anything. My husband still hasn't forgotten an old picture frame I set out for the trash when we were in our first little house, over fifty years ago. A treasure whose value I simply couldn't recognize, and which someone else did, knocking on our door to ask permission to claim it before the trash collectors could. My husband is one of those people who can see a future use for just about anything. And often enough just about anything is recruited by him into duty of one kind or another; he is the original patch-up-artist.

So, yesterday morning while I set about the regular routine of cleaning the house, he began to put together our old trailer. It was bought about thirty years ago when we were living in Georgia, a good-sized trailer with good tires, that could be knocked down and its large flat parts, including the wheels, leaned up against a garage wall, stored upright so as not to take floor space. Every time its hauling capacity is required, as it has been countless times over the years, it is knocked together, wired up to the car, and ready to be loaded.

In the late afternoon after he was finished loading up the trailer, off we set to one of our local Salvation Army thrift shop locations. As we pulled up it was abundantly clear that many others had had the same brilliant idea; the first long week-end of spring begged for a little spring clear-out. We unloaded our offerings and piled them alongside those of countless other people's.

While we were in the process people kept casually sauntering by, an appraising eye on what had been assembled. Having seen something useful to them, if the object was small enough, it was lifted and taken home. In other instances, we saw vehicles pulling up to take possession of objects that had appealed. It's true that everything donated as we were doing was said theoretically to become the 'property' of the Sally Ann for resale, to help with their charitable programs.

On the other hand, these were largely people living in the nearby assisted housing enclaves. What they chose were objects that people living on limited incomes or welfare sometimes need to give them an extra hand up. They were welcome to whatever appeared to be of use to them, as far as we were concerned.

There now, most of the spring planting is now completed. If my husband didn't make the effort to prepare the urns and garden pots for me it would be far more onerous a job getting everything together. He does the difficult work, and it is left to me to complete the job by determining how to mix the annuals for greatest effect. It's something I love doing and which he with his greater sense of aesthetic than I have, very much appreciates.

Of course it will take some time before the flowering plants reach a state of maturity. They don't quite yet fill in their space given, but they will, brimming above and around each of the pots and urns in a gorgeous display of colour and texture and form that is simply irresistible.

It took three days of concentrated effort to finally get this far. One day last week I began with the pots at the front of the house, and did most of them. On Saturday I completed filling those pots in our front gardens and setting out bedding plants in the gardens as well.

And on Sunday, yesterday, I completed planting annuals in our rock garden, and sprinkling them elsewhere in the gardens to complete the process.

And the pots and urns in the backyard also were finally planted, many of them with the begonia bulbs that had begun sprouting nicely, kept over-winter in our basement. I hardly noticed that it had begun sprinkling, then lightly raining. My concession to those untoward-to-planting conditions was to don a rainjacket and continue my fascinating venture in annual out-of-doors decor.

It was all finally accomplished. I have one pot of bacopa left to find a place for, and a flat of wax begonias yet to plant where place can be found for them, and then the planting will have been completed for this year. Gaining me much satisfaction, looking forward to their maturation throughout the course of the summer and into fall. Making me catch my breath each time I surprise the gardens by a quick look then swiftly turns into an admiring appraisal.

On our ravine walk yesterday we came across a man wearing a backpack, around his neck a camera, in his hand a sound recorder, alert to everything around him. The trees are now fairly well filled in, and we've seen that some birds have returned to the woods. We hailed one another, and he informed us he was looking for signs of the presence of owls.

My husband explained that at night, when he takes our little Riley out to the backyard last thing before we depart upstairs for bed, he often hears owls from the direction of the ravine, but we haven't as yet this spring been able to spot them. Often, a group of crows excitedly circling a tree will alert us to the fact that an owl is sitting there, studiously ignoring the crows' noisily abusive attitude toward its presence. We have even, on one occasion, seen a pair of cardinals taking loud exception to the presence of an owl, which sat on a limb unperturbed by the fuss taking place around it.

But this year, nothing yet, aside from the unmistakable night-time calls. Still, the stranger was excited to hear that we'd identified the presence of owls. My husband, in fact, recognized who he was. A very well-known local birder whose observations and name often appeared in the local news. We introduced ourselves and our chat became longer and more involved, we recounting for him the plethora of wildlife we used to see decades ago in the ravine, which had since gradually diminished markedly with the proliferation of new homes above and beyond the ravine, obviously cutting off natural wildlife corridors.

He was interested and asked many questions of us. And he confirmed that the flycatchers that we'd seen two years running that nested under one of the bridges had returned, though we hadn't yet seen them. He told us that one of the nesting places that the owls had used in previous years had been stuffed with sticks and he and other birders had surmised that perhaps squirrels had done that, to keep the owls from re-nesting there.

Difficult to believe, but perhaps possible.

Oblivious? Not really, just kind of taken up with other things; distracted, busy. Both of us were dimly aware of some kind of commotion outside the house. We'd got up late yesterday morning, and Friday just happens to be a busy day for us. Nothing unusual, just lots of things that we usually do, scheduled for Friday.

I was setting the table for breakfast and preparing breakfast, and my husband had taken our little Riley out to the backyard. It was a glorious morning, quite beautiful. Milder than the previous days of the week and sunny, promising to be a lovely day, and we were ready for it. Most people were. And many people in the area were aware of something happening, when we were not. Our granddaughter, at school in one of her Grade 11 classes was aware.

As for us, busy in the kitchen and just come in from the out-of-doors, there was a rumble we were suddenly aware of that put us in mind of something quite large having driven close by, even up our driveway. A late school bus? A tractor-trailer on the wrong street, looking for an address scheduled for a move? None of those, evidently, and we hadn't bothered to go over to the front door to look out.

A magnitude 5.2 quake that took place northeast of Shawville, Quebec. And then an aftershock. And we hadn't noticed. We've noticed tremors over the years that occurred while we were still abed, or busy in the house. There was one in 2010 that shocked us with the force of its intensity, sounding as though a jet airliner was headed right for the house, and the house walls and floors shook even more than the tremors we had been familiar with through our once-residence in Tokyo.

That event was unmistakable, the one that occurred in 2010 that really spoke to our awareness. A seismologist with Natural Resources Canada explained in a newspaper article this morning that the two events, yesterday morning's and the 2010 incident were quite different in character. No injuries or structural damage reported for yesterday's tremors, a small one following the initial, larger one.

Quite unlike that which occurred two years ago and which occasioned much alarm, fear and some property damage, although no harm came to anyone, for which we can all be grateful. Comes with the territory; we live in an earthquake-prone zone.

And where we in particular live there is plenty of leda clay which makes for a quite unstable geological formation. When quakes occur the clay turns into a kind of slurry causing structures to be far more affected than would occur otherwise, on more stable ground.

The garden is a fabulous place to putter around in. You never know what you're going to come across. Sometimes things appear that one could hardly comprehend where they came from. Perhaps a passing bird deposited an exotic seed from someone else's garden through evacuation. Who knows? Sometimes you'll come across that rare occurrence; blue-eyed grass in bloom and look at it in wonder and admiration, those lovely miniature flowering grasses.

Oops! pardon our bare behinds, but we're Faith, Hope and Charity

Gardens have their own inimitable way of surprising, gratifying and mystifying the avid gardener. We're thankful when we see that those plants hovering on the brink of our growing zone managing to make it through the winter. Our original magnolia tree was not meant for this zone, yet by blanketing it carefully winter after winter we have come to the point where it has adjusted and no longer needs winter protection; just as well, given its now-enormous size.

There are pretty little garden thugs that puzzle us, like those that need no encouragement to multiply and grow in places we'd rather they not, like the ground-cover ajuga, like Johny-jump-ups, those sweet little violets that meander, infiltrating lawns, and like their cousins, the woodland violets, enthusiastically blooming throughout the garden, despite desperate bouts of excavating them. Even Lady's Mantle, despite its genteel name, has a habit of sending its underground rootlets similar to yellow loose-strife, proliferating everywhere.

Last year I noticed that a bindweed had grown alongside one of our climbing roses and was accommodating itself to complementing the rose. I left it in place; you never know, though I should have. In Georgia we would occasionally see bindweed with lovely small bright pink trumpet-shaped flowers in the unlikeliest of places. Here in our own ravine, we've come across ground morning glory and I've viewed it rapturously as one of those wonders of nature. I've transplanted springtime-blooming trilliums, foamflower and Jack-in-the-pulpits from the forested ravine to our gardens and they've thrived there.

So I'd left the bindweed and it grew to maturity and never did produce any significant flowers that I could see. Yet, it must have. I spent quite a bit of time this morning in the most inconvenient places yanking out bindweed seedlings that have cropped up everywhere in that particular garden, drat it.

Turns out we were wrong after all, in our assumption that the diagnostic skills of the overseas-located technician working at the Bell Sympatico call centre was wrong. He had informed us that the reason we were unable to get Internet connection on our computers through our wireless system was that the modem wasn't getting enough power to enable it to work. The power supply cord, he informed us, had to be replaced.

Because later that evening we saw that the modem was fully charged and operational, and access was fully available, we had assumed he was wrong, that the problem stemmed from an interruption in service because Sympatico servers must have been down temporarily. Two days later the same thing occurred; no Internet access whatever. I'd experienced full Internet access in the morning and early afternoon but by late afternoon it had dissipated. And remained inoperable. Despite that I could get information that my Internet access was 'excellent', but it couldn't be empowered.

My husband, who was busy changing the tires of our car from the ice tires used throughout the winter months to the all-weather tires suitable for the rest of the year, took it upon himself to interrupt that heavy lifting and use the other car not used in winter to drive over to the Bell Service Centre a half-hour's drive distant, with the now-useless power cord that had accompanied the modem on its initial installation. Which, now that I recall, had already, years ago, been replaced by Sympatico with the explanation that the original one had been flawed.

At the counter, my husband didn't even have to explain the situation once the agent saw the power cord, nor was he asked for any proof of paid service which he was prepared to proffer.

The agent offered the information that the shipment of which this power cord was one example was entirely flawed; devices that simply were inefficient, prone to break-down, and unsuitable for use with the modem with which it was paired. He exchanged, he confided to my husband, at a minimum, six of these things on any given day. A veritable flood of people facing the consternation of inoperable devices disallowing basic Internet access.

Obviously, an equipment-supply failure well known to Bell, but one they deigned not to share with their client base. One might assume that common business sense and customer courtesy might persuade this company which, along with two other monopolistic carriers in the country has countless people depending on their service, to advise clients of what has occurred, and ship out the replacement power sources to all those who have been provided with the flawed ones.

But no, it's buyer beware, fend for yourself. Even if the technician responding to our call had mentioned the situation that was prevalent to us, we would have been less skeptical at his diagnosis, more confident in the resolution method. This is no way for a large, responsible service-provider to behave in courtesy to its client-base.

There is nothing quite like spring, with its message of hope and renewal. When the garden has begun to rouse itself from its long winter sleep. Perennials stretching their green tendrils to welcome the kiss of the sun, the soft life-affirming touch of rainfalls, exiting from the rich loamy soil that sheltered them and has now prepared to lift them aloft to the world above.

To, in fact, our grateful eyes, witnessing the ever-repeating miracle of rebirth and restoration. Trees gradually recapturing their green presence - although it seems by miraculous leaps and bounds, the transition seems both inspiringly incremental and furiously swift. But peering minutely about in the garden even daily changes are visible, amazingly so. Where the day before there was no activity in a specific area, suddenly up comes the longed-for specimen.

The earliest of the trees to burst into bloom are the magnolias, with their saucer-sized flowers before leafing out, followed in succession by the flowering crabs, displaying their glory in turn, and the
bridal spirea awaiting its opportunity to flush in white bridal-veil splendour.

The hostas are beginning their time in the shade and sun, at just the right time to be carefully separated, and planted elsewhere in the garden, their wonderful foliage providing decor wherever they're placed, plants that never cease to give pleasure. Feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, digging into the moist, welcoming soil is amazingly satisfying, the pleasurable anticipation of rewards enticing one to continue, to assess where best each plant can be allowed to proliferate for greatest aesthetic effect.

Time now as well, with danger of night-time frost fast dissipating, to begin planting the urns and garden pots with the annuals that will continue to give us surprises throughout the summer months.

Last night we watched the film Up In The Air. Lucky for us, it was well worth viewing. It spoke volumes of the verities of human emotional need, how much of our emotions are invested in how we conduct ourselves through our interpersonal attachments and in the workplace, an area of human endeavour which constitutes the major mature portion of an individual's life-purpose in the capacity of adequately fending for ourselves in a sometimes-hostile environment. Hostile, that is, to finding satisfaction in life.

And, of course, how an unexpected interruption in the flow of their lives can utterly disrupt the balance, leaving them bereft, unprotected from the blows of life's adversities. Our dependence on one another as human contacts of both deeply intimate and more casual reliance as part of the social fabric that communities and families and workplaces represent is set out in excellent detail, with outstanding theatrical performances.

Understudy: Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) gets a lesson in corporate downsizing from Ryan Bingham

We don't usually watch films on week-day nights, reserving that to Saturdays. And this is a film that we had set aside, but needed to be returned to the public library, so we took that opportunity. We were shut out of the Internet, unaccountably. In the evenings my husband usually looks up old, mostly British serial productions, both dramas and crime types that appeal to him. While I in my turn spend the evening hours writing in my blogs.

We checked all of our plugs and their contacts, and nothing seemed amiss, yet the ability to log onto the Internet was consistently denied us. Reluctantly, because I rarely have satisfaction from it, I dialled the Bell Sympatico help line and struggled through the rigmarole of speaking to a technician. Offshore, of course. We both felt that the connection lapse hadn't emanated from our immediate location, but was a failure of Bell Sympatico, and had expected to be informed that this was the case before even speaking to a technician.

That didn't happen. Instead, the technician patiently drew me through a series of instructions, basically repeating what we had already done on our own, to no avail. He concluded, through his expertise, that we needed to replace the power supply cord for the ethernet modem; not enough energy was being provided for the modem to operate, he explained. The struggle to understand his suggestions and conclusions compounded by his Indian-accented English; good and precise, but accented nonetheless, comprising an auditory challenge.

And that, my friend, was that. No Internet capacity for us, that evening. I could have done my composing offline and then transferred the results once able to retain Internet capacity, but there's just something about being online that propels me into effortless writing activity.

At midnight, however, after viewing the film and looking over at the modem, there it was, displaying full capabilities, all green lights steady on course and prepared to deliver; the issue had resolved itself, the connection between the Sympatico server and our puny little home computer had come through, and I was finally able to access the Internet.

No kudos whatever to our Internet access provider; there seldom is.

It is now a week since a 32-year-old son, husband, father has been absent from his home. Tim Bosma had advertised his 2006 Dodge Ram pickup for sale. He lives in Hamilton with his wife and infant daughter. At 7:30 in the evening last Monday he waved a cheerful farewell to his wife, assuring her he wouldn't be long. He went off for a demonstration drive with two young men from Toronto who expressed interest in his vehicle.

And then, he never returned.

His wife has made a tearful plea for his return the following day. On Mother's Day, Tim Bosma's mother Mary Bosma added her frantic voice to an appeal for her son's return to his family. She desperately conveyed the message that her son needed to return to his wife and his daughter. All of his relatives were anxiously awaiting that time when their loved family member would return to them.

No word has been received throwing any light on where he could possibly be.

His truck has been recovered. One of the men involved in his abduction is now in custody. Toronto resident, 27-year-old  Dellen Millard is charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000. Police are searching for the second suspect.

"Even though there's been an arrest, he still is not home with us. My heart is broken. I love him so much. We just want him home", his mother pleaded to the public. The public's heart is with her. But public distress at such a turn of events that succeeds in twisting so many peoples' lives with the anguish of loss is helpless in the face of the presence of maleficent psychopaths among us.

Over 300 tips have been received from the public by police through a specially set-up hotline. Investigators are assuring that they have "relentlessly pursued" them all, and will continue to. The passion for a miracle to occur, and Tim Bosma to be restored to his family suffuses society.

Yesterday when we called they said, yes, their begonias were ready. They are by no means the only flowering plants we're interested in, but the quality of the begonias, and their very competitive price, has ensured we continue returning to the Cleroux nurseries year after year for the annuals we plant in our plethora of garden pots and urns.

While there we chose the begonias we required in all the colours that so entrance us in those gorgeous flowers. We also picked up bacopa, million bells, marigolds, portulaca, petunias, impatiens, vinca, phlox and geraniums. Just managing to fit all of them into the capacious trunk of the car, and on the back seat, before driving back home with our treasures. None of which can be planted until perhaps next week; they will be stored in the garden shed until then.

The very hot dry weather we'd experienced for the last week has gone. In its place we've had plenty of rain, which we most certainly need, to help the perennials in the garden (let alone on a universal, macro scale in the environment) begin their ascent into summer and a cooling of the atmosphere that seems more like a return to early spring than the mid-spring temperatures we'd prefer to enjoy. Because it has become so cool, there is always the danger of nighttime frost.

We do shop elsewhere as well, at other area nurseries, but it's at the Cleroux nurseries that we obtain most of the excellent stock that we use, year after year. I do keep the begonia bulbs over, year after year as well, storing them in the basement of our house throughout the winter months, and in late April many of them have already begun sprouting, helped along by the spring sun shining through the basement windows, and being sprinkled several times weekly with a water mist. Those are the bulbs that I usually plant in the waiting pots in the backyard and throughout the gardens.

"Where's your other dog?" she asked. Amazing, really, considering that she sees us only once a year, and has thousands of people thronging to pick up her superior grade plants every spring. We explained the absence of our little black poodle, and her eyes pooled. We asked in turn where the remaining little Shih Tsu was, that she had of the pair we had originally met when we first began shopping there. We knew that one of them had gone several years earlier. Its companion was lost to death over the winter.

Her son, a robust middle-aged man, described to us that while he was on a trip to Toronto he had a call from his mother informing him that she was taking their remaining dog to the veterinarian that day, to be put down. He was baffled and perturbed, begged her to wait, he would be home directly. When he'd left, he said, the little dog seemed just fine, and he couldn't imagine why his mother had decided to take such precipitate action to remove their beloved remaining pet from life. But when he arrived home he was dumbstruck to see what had happened to the little thing in his several days' absence; her health had suddenly collapsed and she could barely stand, her bones seeming to stick out everywhere.

They both stood there before us, eyes clouded with the memory of their loss, inconsolable with the pain of it, and we knew we had met the match of our desolate feelings of loss over our long-time companion, Button.

Well, as it happens, things work out best between us when we happen to complement one the other. Not that one of us cannot attempt to be self-reliant when we can. But we do recognize that it is more efficient when one of us excels at something, or is more capable than the other, it makes common sense to take advantage of that.

So, I do the cooking, although there are times when he does some food preparation. He does, though, enjoy what I bake and prepare for our meals, we have a rather extensive repertoire, and occasionally try out new things. He is far more fastidious about food and eating and experiencing new taste sensations than I am. But he relishes food to the degree that it is a delight and a pleasure for me to present him with those recipes he most enjoys, many of which are ethnically traditional.

On the other hand, although I have taken driving lessons, and impressed him with my ability to more than adequately drive our vehicles, I have no interest in doing so. Even recognizing that it is a skill that is valuable and that being able to drive can be to both our advantages, particularly during times of some kind of emergency, I haven't been able to be sufficiently interested to pursue it. And so, I don't drive at all. Leaving me hugely dependent on him to get around. Although that never stopped me when I was on my own in places like Tokyo, where I would walk for hours, just occasionally taking a bus or a train.

He does the heavy lifting, I do the in-between. If something needs to be done around the house, shovelling snow, mowing the lawn, repairing plumbing, it isn't I who attends to it all. And that is quite apart from all the projects he takes on, from tiling floors to excavation and patio-building, installation of doors and surrounds, and anything else that can be named.

We take a mutual interest in things that are of importance to us, and always have. And we're both besotted with books and read constantly, whatever and whenever we can. As for the great out-of-doors, it's there for us to explore, to enjoy, to revel in. Increasingly he has become involved with me in doing our gardening. What a wonderful collaboration. What more could anyone ask for?

She told me years ago, most affectingly, how it was she had become involved in raising funds for cancer research. She had watched her husband succumb to cancer. Witnessed the devastating decline of a healthy man well past middle age, but still vibrantly involved with life, slowly plunged into a struggle to maintain hope that he would survive past the surgery, the radiation, the drug regimen that had turned him into an invalid.

She had been with him all the way, nursing and encouraging him, trying to lift his spirits, to renew his interest in so many things that were once of importance to him. The slow decline rapidly accelerated as cancer returned, not once, but twice, until finally the prognosis was inevitable and obvious even without the sombre pronunciations of the consulting oncologist.

By the time I got to know her she was already approaching her 80s. She was still a robust woman, stylishly dressed, enthusiastic about life, heavily involved in community and proud of her two daughters themselves mothers of teen girls. Of her sons-in-law, one had her deep admiration and respect, he was a "really good man", she confided to me. One daughter a nurse, the other involved in the plastic arts, a sculptor of some local renown.

Over the years she has presented as no different than when I first knew her. A youthful appearing woman for her age, with ample energy to mobilize the lethargy of many very much younger than herself; an optimist, a very busy and engaged personality. Impossible not to admire her, not to say to yourself, I'll be like her eventually, hopefully. She has had her health problems, but while taking them sufficiently serious to follow the required protocols, not allowing them to structure her life.

Yesterday, she kept my husband listening for quite a long time. He had gone over to her house, a few streets off from our own, on an errand. Even at her age she is durable enough to continue living on her own, in her own home, driving her car, looking to her own needs, along with continued community involvement. She is gregarious, open and gracious.

She conveyed to my husband how regretful she feels looking back at her life and how it unveiled itself for her through a course she sometimes felt helpless to alter, even when she was desperate to effect a change. Above all, she said, she regrets now her free-will choice that was of such a great influence on the turns her life would take. Her choice of a life companion. Her husband, whom I never had suspected from what she conveyed to me previously, was someone she neither loved nor respected; rather someone whose venality and abusive character she came to despise.

She hadn't, as she had thought she was doing, chosen a life mate who would complement her own life, someone with whom she would enjoy the passage into the destiny that each of us faces through fortune, good or bad. She has no memories to treasure of her passage alongside his. She regrets what she had the misfortune to bypass; a happy contented life with a "good man".

Recognizing, I infer from this encounter with someone else's choice who happened to be a "good man", just how different the trajectory of her intimate life could have been, might have been, had she hesitated in her free-will choice. But then, none of us can read the future, and even if we could we would not necessarily be possessed with the kind of clairvoyance that might allow us to assess traits submerged only to rise in time and take possession of our hopes.

How many of us know our neighbours, living in large urban areas. We are a community, to be sure, but sometimes neighbourly camaraderie eludes us; people can be suspicious of one another, have no wish to add any complications to their already-complex lives, finding it difficult enough to deal with ordinary, everyday occurrences requiring attention. Yet it is beyond pleasant to have confidence in the humanity of those among whom we live.

And extending recognition to those with whom we share fairly close geographic space through the courtesy of a modicum of interest and good humour reflects on us as individuals and does add value to our lives. I feel that I know many of my neighbours to a degree that I respect them as people, irrespective of their ethnic-cultural backgrounds, sharing social values with my own. This can be judged on a number of obvious and less obvious indices where attitudes are conveyed and registered.

Those among my neighbours who are hostile to extending acquaintance with others, and who give adequate evidence of that trait over the years are those whom we ordinarily give wide berth. They have no wish to be pleasant, make that abundantly obvious by shunning any kind of acknowledgement of the presence of others, and their attitudes are accepted and reciprocated.

As normal, decent people we hope to live in harmony with our neighbours, because doing so enhances the quality of our own lives -- extending that opportunity to others as well, through courtesy and acceptance in normal, everyday interactions simply makes life more pleasant.

We don't ordinarily carefully select those with whom we will share space on a street, whose activities may on occasion be irritating to us. When we move to a house on a street we are unfamiliar with, we scarcely give a thought to who will be living next to or across the street from us. Trusting that we will eventually come across those people and find them to be as agreeable in nature as we consider ourselves to be.

One wonders the life-lesson being absorbed by students at a junior high school in Calgary. Their science teacher, 31-year-old Harvey Kelloway was stabbed to death by someone he had just met. A man who had just moved into the house beside where he lived. Harvey Kelloway had a partner-in-life, and they shared the care of a young son. The little boy will be too young to remember anything about his father.

Staff-Sgt. Doug Andrus of the Calgary Police explained what police believe occurred: "We believe that the suspect went over to the victim's residence earlier in the afternoon to introduce himself, and then they continued to associate throughout the day and into the late evening." The two men evidently consumed alcohol, as men are wont to do. It is not believed the two men had known one another previous to this meeting.

Someone, late in the day, dialled a 911 call from within the suspect's house. When police arrived they discovered the grisly scene of death.