Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 27, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 7^th Anniversary, Cassie and Michael!

Happy 2^nd Anniversary, Rowen and Tim!

For the record, I have no good reason for why we sometimes start those name combinations with the girl or boy name first – though I do know that I go with the girl name first more-often than Ethan does when he’s writing our journals!  As for the actual anniversary fun for today, we did a group vid-chat with Rowen and Tim at breakfast; they are working today too; and they are not really planning a party tonight because Tim can’t be sure to have the evening off if the number of emergency service calls stay as high as expected thanks to the triple-digit highs at home that always stress farm equipment that needs to be kept running all summer.  Cassie and Michael are working all day today too, but we do have plans for an anniversary dinner and some sightseeing to go along with the work.  We don’t have that news for you yet because this is an early update while we’re taking a quick break and dealing with some chores, but we should have also mentioned that the group vid-chat included Proctor and Stone family members for celebrating Cassie and Michael’s special day too.

Here in Winnipeg, the weather has been pretty good so far after some overnight rain including during our drive time from Thunder Bay, but there is a chance of some more rain later that we hope won’t get in the way of the work or play time.  It isn’t as hot here as at home, but mid-nineties is still hot; so there might be a pool swim in our future later today too.  That comment has Ethan’s thoughts wandering off on a girlfriend-in-swimsuit tangent; so we should likely just wrap this up now that he’s totally lost interest in this little task! ;^)

The war with Iran is still off so far today – or not; since they get blamed for everything that happens in the region and beyond that includes the fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.  The two straits being fought over are also either open or not depending on the source; so we’ll just have to wait and find out the truth as supply chains either recover or continue to be destroyed depending on what is actually true.  Oil prices are currently down on hopes of another ceasefire, and we can only continue to be amazed by the insanity of investors continuing to believe in rhetoric over reality while insiders are obviously making billions at their expense and loss.  While I won’t get into a rant about that, let’s also mention that the most-obvious display of that cost to investors is the ongoing distortion between spot and future prices that in normal markets would only be a difference to either side of the futures price of only a couple of dollars that has instead been a difference of forty dollars or more since the start of the Iran war at the end of February.  The people getting to pocket the money from that difference are gaining those billions; and that is really nothing more than winning – or losing – bets on a market that is currently rigged.

Ethan is still daydreaming of Naomi-in-a-swimsuit, but we should at least mention the mess that is Ukraine.  The western media reports endlessly on every daily Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian civilian targets that include retail warehouses, tourist resorts, and passenger buses while they ignore reporting on the massive Russian attacks on Ukraine.  Russia is continuing to target Odessa ports and any ships daring to attempt to use them; missile and drone strikes are continuing on the Kiev region; and we can’t imagine how tough that must be on the people for everything from lack of sleep to power outages during summer heat to pressure on emergency services and daily life survival.  The frontlines fighting continues to be a disaster for Ukraine, and while we are repeating ourselves too-often in our journals, this war will eventually end one way or the other; and it truly is insane for Ukrainian leaders to keep fighting when taking a bad peace deal is far-better for their people than fighting to the last citizen!

Okay, that’s enough for today – and I’m not just writing that because Ethan has lost all ability to focus on anything serious!  I’m okay with getting back to the real world, and our chores are nearly finished anyway; so that’s all for this report.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 26, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

The news from home included a heat-shortened church service this morning; a Quarry Lake play afternoon to stay cool on one of the hottest days of the summer-so-far; and a buffet dinner at the Inn as a semi wrap-up blast of food fun for the Malloys’ anniversary weekend getaway.  Our cousins have helped to keep Valerie and Marcus entertained while we’re away; so they’ve had fun without us.

Our adventures in Thunder Bay were amazing; so we didn’t feel bad about what we missed at home today.  The evening sailing tour last night was awesome and unforgettable views of the water and shoreline were spectacular!  Great Lakes sailing is nothing like anything we have near home; and the tour company we sailed with has some incredible options from catamarans and sail boats to speed boats, cruisers, and fishing options.  We are not advertising for them here in our journals, but for future Magi, if you’re ever in the area; you should definitely include a Superior sailing tour! ;^)

The working dinner last night was good too, but the other sightseeing highlights of our Sunday included the fort visit, the shoreline bike ride, and checking out the Kakabeka Falls that we stopped to see on our way from Thunder Bay as we started the trip-in-progress to Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Those falls are referred to as the Niagara Falls of the North, and they are the second-tallest falls in Ontario at over one-hundred and twenty feet, but while they are amazing; we really loved the location that is still mostly-natural without the extreme tourism built up around Niagara Falls.  We helped Cassie and Michael with a total of four work meetings today too including a working breakfast and lunch; and that’s pretty much all of the news we have for our own adventures.  We’ll be on the road this evening for around eight hours plus any stops for breaks along the way – though we’ll switch time zones too; so that will help a bit with our available sleep time once we’re in Winnipeg.

While we have the time again tonight, Ethan and I do not want to get into a major world news rant – though we could do that every day as our leaders continue the insanity around the world!  In the Middle East, war is off today – or on, depending on where you look or who you listen to, but President Trump is apparently flopping again to war-off with Iran despite no changes in diplomacy.  Some reports claim that he is stopping the bombing due to missile and bomb stocks being depleted, but we don’t believe that this will be more than another break while plans are assessed and changed again.  There is still fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen; Israel continued to commit atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and beyond; and the oil is not flowing in the region at the levels needed to keep the world economy from driving off the cliff ahead of us.

In Ukraine, the bad rolls on; the leaders in the west are still oblivious; and the ‘normal’ people continue to pay the price every day.  In addition to the frontlines fighting and bombing across the country, the blockade of Odessa and attacks on any ships attempting to travel there continues; and it won’t take long for that to have a major impact both on Ukraine’s ability to fight and conduct business.  Ukraine is still fighting back with their drones – including on civilian ships; so the combination of the attacks from both sides are causing serious problems for the world transportation system.

We haven’t mentioned Europe’s latest sanctions package on Russia, but they are really only shooting their own economy in the head; Russia will ignore these sanctions or work around them; and the European leaders are insane if they believe they have the power to enforce a price cap on Russia petroleum products on the world market.  They also continue to talk about blockades for Russian oil tankers, and that’s insane too, but then America started that blockade trend with Venezuela and Cuba; so now it seems as though the rest of the world has decided that high seas piracy is the new norm.  We think that all blockades are stupid and basically acts of war along with being bad for everyone; so we think that they should all stop before it is too late and we find ourselves in another world war.

I should likely stop writing that we don’t want to get into any rants when half the time we go on to doing one anyway, but we are going to stop there; I’m going to enjoy some quality co-ed cuddle time with Aiden; and we’ll all enjoy the drive time out of Ontario and into Manitoba.  Stay tuned, future reader, since we are going to have a very busy week working and playing in three Provinces with the work covering everything from agriculture to the energy industry.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 25, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 8^th Birthday, Tamara Carter!

Happy 26^th Birthday, Vanessa Sparks!

The birthday party at the Ridge River Ranch wouldn’t have been on our activity list if we’d been home today, but Tamara’s friends really love getting to spend a day at her home; and we’ve heard that they are camping and doing an overnight trail ride adventure.

We missed two ‘family’ ball games today too, and while Brianna didn’t pitch another no-hitter; she did lead her Rebels team to a twelve-to-two victory over the Pizzeria Patriots with some significant help from Faith for both defense and batting.  Leah and Hailey followed that performance with an even-better game as the Med Center Mist earned a seventeen-to-five win over the Sapphire Storm.  Ethan and I are very happy for those wins because we won’t get teased about being blamed for all losses while we’re away!  There is bonus family fun happening around town too while the Malloys are visiting; and with a triple-digit high this afternoon; the weather is great for outdoor play in and around the river and out at Quarry Lake.

The weather is great here in Thunder Bay too; we arrived in time for an early breakfast; and Ethan and I helped Cassie and Michael and our best friends with some fatigue healing after the overnight drive so that we were all at full-power for a work-play day!  Thunder Bay is a modest-sized city by our home country standards, but it is the center of power for this region of Ontario; and the largest employment segment supports medical and social services for the region.  Education is big here too with well-respected university and college options; and then there is related businesses tied to research and tech.  We already had meetings and a site visit related to all of the above; and we’re going to have some water fun tonight with an evening boat tour to go along with a work dinner and a meeting at the port with a new partnership for agricultural products transportation.  I’m not officially involved in those deals, but almost all of the agriculture-related business and charity projects that Cassie and Michael are working on in Canada are connected to my work at the lab as they help to expand sales of our designed seeds and the rest of our agricultural products.  We’re finally getting to a point where we can support major expansion into other countries, but there is a lot more involved beyond farm partnerships; and Thunder Bay is a key shipping hub for crops coming out of the prairie provinces that then get shipped through the Great Lakes.  It might have been fun to go on a commercial fishing boat too, but we won’t have time for that while here – and Lake Superior is quite a bit cooler than the water we’re used to at home!  We will be having some meetings related to forestry and mining tomorrow, but we can cover that part of our adventure with that update.

We are writing this update while taking a break and settling into our weekend accommodations.  Dinner is up next on our to-do list, and we need to go soon, but before we do that; let’s mention some thoughts we have about some differences between here and home that we find very interesting.  Weather is possibly the largest factor for differences in architecture compared to home; and the buildings here are built to withstand long, harsh winters and storms that can be extreme thanks to Lake Superior.  The local natural wonders are different and amazing too, and while we haven’t been able to try out many of the attractions that are in the region; we did enjoy the scenery early this morning on the way into the city; and we will fit in a fort tour and maybe a waterfront bike ride tomorrow.  We really need to get going soon; so let’s wrap this up with a quick world news report.

Starting with the Ukraine war, the escalating violence continues with Ukrainian drones continuing to go after ‘soft’ targets aimed at civilians while Russia is bombing everything and pushing hard along the front lines.  The bad is going to get worse; and we don’t even want to think about what it will be like in Ukraine by winter.  In the Middle East, the top news is that Saudi Arabia led missile and bombing attacks on Yemen; the Houthis are retaliating; and that is another war front opening up – again; since Saudi Arabia has been fighting the Houthis off-and-on for more than a decade now.  There have been reports that ‘we’ are pausing attacks on Iran, but that’s more-likely just part of the military plan to get ready for bigger strikes on Iran that President Trump has been threatening for weeks now; and we don’t expect a sudden flip back to peace – even if some market players might be betting on that change and front-running the news.

There have been more reports warning of food security issues that are compounding as fertilizer supply stresses grow and the poorest nations suffer the most.  We don’t want to see that happen, but even the expansions we are doing that will help with food supplies; we can’t grow fast-enough to replace the damage that is being done; since our total impact is still a fraction of a percent of the world food needs.  It is totally wrong for us to be writing about that when we are about to go out to an amazing meal that won’t be affected by world food supply, but we are still hungry; so we’ll try not to feel guilty while being grateful for our blessings.

We really do need to finish getting ready to go out; so that’s all for this report.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 24, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 22^nd Anniversary, Angela and Terry Malloy!

Happy 19^th Birthday, Ryan Bassett!

Happy 26^th Birthday, Serena Kendall!

Congratulations Serena and Shayne – You’re Engaged!

The Malloys are in town for the weekend and an anniversary vacation, so we would have spent time with them today, but then it has been stormy and wet and cooler there; so they didn’t exactly get to go outside to play very much.  The weather let up enough for the co-ed ball game to go ahead after dinner, but it was still damp; and the spectator turnout was very low as ‘our’ Wild team lost twelve-to-ten to Palmer’s Pride.  Some blame was sent our way for not being there to cheer for our team, but we all know that it had more to do with not having Jake and Stephanie playing tonight because the rain also meant a busier night at the Inn and they couldn’t get away for the game.  Cassie and Michael loved the engagement news, and while Shayne proposed for Serena’s birthday; they’re calling it a joint birthday gift for both of them; and they are currently also on vacation to celebrate both birthdays and do visits with their families.  We did a short vid-chat with them and also with Ryan, so while Cassie and Michael might have done more with Ryan if we’d been home; the gifts that had been left or sent ahead of time and the vid-chat wasn’t really different from normal for them anyway.

While it rained at home with a high in the mid-seventies; we’ve had another sunny day here and it was warmer too with an afternoon high of eighty-six.  That worked great for our meetings, site visits, and sightseeing; the work was a lot of fun from new First Nations partnerships to resources development and environmental conservation projects; and our entertainment highlight was the visit to Science North.  Each of the three science centers we’ve visited in Canada are unique, and while the one in Sudbury is much smaller than the center in Toronto; it was also still a lot of fun and I’ll admit that the scientist in our group had the most fun with everything we saw and experienced there.

Our top news for this report should be our current activity – the overnight drive all the way from Sudbury to Thunder Bay.  That’s a bit over six-hundred miles; it will take around eleven hours plus stops; and we’ll be doing the full trip so that we can spend the entire weekend in Thunder Bay and the surrounding region on the northwest shore of Lake Superior.  The teens in our group might take turns driving too, but Cassie and Michael could do it all and take turns napping, so if we help out; that will just be for the experience and driving practice.  For the legal record, we won’t ask the Provincial police if our learner’s permits are valid in Canada, since while that likely isn’t a problem for most American drivers; our age might be an issue in at least some of the provinces where drivers need to be at least sixteen for the first level of graduated licenses.  I’ll also add that I do know that Aiden hasn’t joined that club with us yet, but don’t really think about that at all; and he will be in the club by the end of October.  Before we move on to the world news update, and since I’m thinking about driving; let’s mention the primary highway we’re using tonight – the Trans-Canada Highway.  Depending on the calculations you want to use, this highway is between forty-six and forty-nine hundred miles long with a total of around eight-thousand miles in the entire system including all spurs and alternate routes.  Even that ‘shortest’ number is half-again longer than the longest Interstate in America, so that is impressive, though as with the Interstate highway systems at home; this one has a wide range of quality and the maintenance and repair work never ends.  We’ll be using this highway a lot for the rest of our trip to the west coast, so that’s enough for tonight; and we might have more on that part of our travel story as we experience the longer-distance drives between the major cities in the Prairie provinces.

That brings us to the world news update, and since we have lots of time on this long drive; let’s go for a longer report and maybe a bit of a rant on the never-ending idiocies of our world leaders!  The Middle East continues to be a disaster on a lot of levels, but our hypocrisy report of the day is thanks to a story about President Trump and others commenting on allowing Saudi Arabia to have a nuclear program and enrich Uranium at the same time that they’re destroying Iran supposedly to keep them from enriching Uranium.  Conditions were added through the day thanks to having that pointed out to our leaders; and the entire story might have just be theatre; since Saudi Arabia would be crazy to agree to those conditions while Israel is continuing to destroy Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon.  The Straits out of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf continue to either be open or not, but oil prices went down a bit today for no apparent reason other than some bets made money while others lost trading on nothing valid.  The bombs and missiles and drones kept flying; so did the threats; and we’ll see whether that escalates again over the weekend or not.

As for President Trump’s threats, he isn’t restricting them to enemies.  He threatened Canada again today, and since we’re in the country; we’ll hope that he doesn’t decide to go to war with them too – especially when the spat of the day is over the new bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan.  President Trump decided that the deal made with Canada to build and manage the new bridge wasn’t ‘fair’ to our country; he ordered changes; and now he’s mad that Canada didn’t invite him to the official opening ceremony.  That’s ridiculous, but then so is his rants about Europe and the taxes and other charges the European Union is imposing on American companies for various reasons.  News flash to the President – we have taxes and tariffs and other costs for pretty much every foreign company that imports products and services to us; so there’s another major example of hypocrisy in action for our leaders!

Let’s take that topic for a transition to Europe and their latest sanctions package on Russia that won’t do anything except increase tensions and anger.  Add in a plan to pirate Russian oil tankers in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, and if they are dumb-enough to actually do that; it will not end well for the countries involved.  Their leaders really do seem to be driven to destroy their own countries; so we’ll expect the worst from them – along with the inevitable consequences.  There is more talk about support for Ukraine and the war against Russia, but other than the ongoing tactics change to send drones against civilian warehouses and stores; there aren’t any serious plans being publicized to help on the frontlines or with the non-stop Russian bombings across Ukraine that are causing massive damage and casualties.  Okay, we can mention that European countries are working toward expelling draft-age Ukrainians to send them back to Ukraine to die for their country; and we will never understand how any leaders can live with themselves while committing moral crimes like that – especially when those leaders are often the same people claiming to hold concepts like bodily autonomy as sacred!  As far as the frontlines action goes; Russian forces continue slow advances; more Ukrainian troops are at risk of getting caught in several different cauldrons, and since they are rarely permitted to retreat; that never ends well for them.

That’s enough for tonight, since after all of that; I’d rather enjoy some travel nap time cuddled with Aiden instead of ranting on; since that is a much happier place to be!  Stay tuned; and we’ll hope for some good stories to share over the weekend as we work and play in our final stop in Ontario before moving on to Manitoba on Monday.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!