Kaitiaki Hamon’s Look At Weather And The World

🏒 Kaitiaki Hamon's Look At Weather And The World

[NOW PLAYING] 😈 Mr. Brightside – The Killers 😈
/coming out of my cage and I have been doing just fine: a Monday morning anthem for a week that starts cold and climbs/

New here? Stick around, pull up a chair, and ride with us every morning: five pro secrets, one true story, two countries of weather, and a soundtrack that guarantees LAWNgevity. 🌱

🌤️ Intro

Hey crew, Kaitiaki Hamon here 🌳🚜. I am writing this one from in between homes, still at the old place waiting on people and trucks while the new lease has already started ticking, and if you have ever lived out of half-packed boxes you know exactly what kind of character building that is 📦. Yesterday I got a big piece of paperwork submitted, this morning I have an important call to make to push it along, the registry email is sent, the canvases are waiting patiently for hands that are currently busy carrying furniture, and Edmonton has handed us a sunny November week I fully intend to use ☀️. On deck today you will find the 5 Things Most Pro Landscapers Won't Tell You with the Deep Dive waiting further down, Today's Message, Today's Weather with the five day outlook, the Star Wars galaxy forecast for the week ahead, the Daily Landscaping LOL, and Ron Hairemy's Songs That Guarantee LAWNgevity to bring it home 🎶. Every section is loaded and nothing is spoiled, so settle in with that coffee ☕. Let's ride. 🚀

🛠️ 5 Things Most Pro Landscapers Won't Tell You

1. 🌿🛠️ Re-adhere loose retaining wall cap stones in this warm, dry window
2. 🌿🛠️ Oil wooden tool handles with boiled linseed oil before winter storage
3. 🌿🛠️ Fill low spots by walks and doors with dry screened loam, tamped in thin lifts
4. 🌿🛠️ Tie rose canes together in a loose bundle before you mound or cover them
5. 🌿🛠️ Stretch a leaf net over the pond or water feature before it ices over

👇 Continue reading to learn more — the full breakdown on all five is waiting for you after the joke.

🌟 Today's Message: The Seventh Man: Joey Moss and the Work That Held a City Together

Some heroes wear skates, and some heroes carry the towels, and Edmonton knew the difference mattered a whole lot less than the heart doing the work 🏒❤️. Joseph Neil Moss was born in Edmonton on September 25, 1963, the twelfth of thirteen kids, and he was born with Down syndrome at a time when the world handed families like his a very short list of expectations 📋. His parents refused that list, raised him right alongside his siblings, and put a small guitar in his hands in the family band 🎸. Joey grew up working, including at a bottle depot, where his dedication caught the eye of a young Wayne Gretzky, who was dating Joey's sister Vikki and saw what plenty of employers had walked straight past: a man who showed up, every day, like the job mattered 💪✨.

Gretzky asked the Oilers to give him a tryout as a dressing room attendant, and in the 1984-85 season Joey Moss walked into one of the greatest dressing rooms in hockey history and simply never left 🏆. He cleaned, he folded, he hauled towels and water, he sang the anthem with everything he had, and he did it for over three decades, through four of the Oilers' five Stanley Cups 🎶. In the summers he crossed over to the Edmonton football team from 1986 onward, because one city's worth of gratitude was not enough shifts for Joey 🚜. When the Oilers made their miracle run to the Final in 2006, Joey delayed his own hernia surgery until the playoffs were done, because his team needed him and that was the end of the discussion 🔥. That is not a mascot story, crew. That is a work ethic story, and every landscaper reading this knows exactly the kind of person I am describing: the one who is there before you, still there after you, and holding the whole operation together 🌟.

And here is where his story grows past the rink 🌍. Joey lent his name and his energy to Joey's Home, an assisted living residence for people with developmental disabilities run through the Winnifred Stewart Association, and helped start the Empties to Winn fundraiser that supports disability programs across the Edmonton region 🏠❤️. In 2018 the Edmonton Down Syndrome Society opened the Joey Moss Literacy Centre for Excellence, with workshops, a library, and reading coaches, because the man who was once handed low expectations spent his life quietly raising everyone else's 📚✨. The honours followed the work, the way they should: the NHL Alumni Association's Seventh Man Award in 2003 for behind-the-scenes service that changes lives, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, a mural on 99 Street in 2008, and induction into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 2015 🏅.

Joey Moss passed away on October 26, 2020, at 57, and Edmonton mourned him the way you mourn family 💔. A bronze statue of him, mid high-five, now stands by the Oilers dressing room at Rogers Place, a school in Keswick carries his name, and the Joey Moss Memorial Fund keeps his work moving 🙌. So here is my call to action, and it is a simple one: be the person who notices the Joey in your workplace, your crew, your neighbourhood, and then be the Gretzky in the story too, the one who opens the door instead of walking past it 🚪✨. Hire the person everyone underestimates, back them properly, and watch what thirty years of loyalty looks like. The seventh man held this city's heart together with folded towels and a full-throated anthem, and he never once needed the spotlight to do it. Forward is always a choice, and that means YOU too!

Sources:
https://www.nhl.com/oilers/team/joey-moss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Moss
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/longtime-oilers-locker-room-attendant-joey-moss-dies-57/
https://3downnation.com/2021/08/07/edmonton-football-team-honours-legend-joey-moss-with-helmet-decal/

🌤️ Today's Weather

Edmonton, today (Monday, November 2): Partly cloudy and properly cold at dawn, sitting at -7°C this morning with 90% humidity and a light SSW wind at 3 km/h, then the sun takes over ☀️. We climb to a high of 6°C under sunny skies, humidity easing to about 66%, wind SSW at 9 km/h, and next to no chance of precipitation before a partly cloudy night at -2°C. Sunrise 8:35 AM, sunset 5:58 PM 🌅. The vibe is a cold start with a genuinely kind afternoon hiding inside it, and for work and mindset it means dress for winter at 8 AM and do not let the morning fool you out of using the best dry day of the month so far. Scale of the Pantaloon: at 6°C, Level 5, "Time to Break Out the Sweatpants" 👟

Aotearoa (Auckland), today (Tuesday, November 3 NZDT, across the date line): Mostly cloudy and mild, currently 16°C with 84% humidity and a NE wind at 10 km/h, heading for a high of 20°C with cloud cover, about a 20% chance of rain, humidity near 74%, and NNE winds building to 26 km/h before drizzle late and a low of 16°C 🌦️. Sunrise 6:14 AM, sunset 7:55 PM. The vibe is warm, grey, and gathering itself for a wet week, and for mindset it is spring doing its honest work while we button down for winter 🌱. Scale of the Pantaloon: at 20°C, Level 7, "Bust Out the Booty Shorts, Baby!" 🩳

📅 Next 5 Days — Edmonton – Aeoteroa

Tuesday, November 3: Edmonton: partly cloudy, high 8°C, low -2°C, rain 10%, light WNW wind at 4 km/h, a steady and workable day 🌤️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 5, "Time to Break Out the Sweatpants" 👟 Aotearoa: cloudy, high 20°C, low 16°C, rain 20%, NNE wind 26 km/h ☁️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 7, "Bust Out the Booty Shorts, Baby!" 🩳

Wednesday, November 4: Edmonton: partly cloudy, high 9°C, low -2°C, rain 10%, SSE wind 10 km/h, the warmest Edmonton day of the run ☀️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 5, "Time to Break Out the Sweatpants" 👟 Aotearoa: morning showers, high 20°C, low 16°C, rain 40%, NE wind 25 km/h 🌦️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 7, "Bust Out the Booty Shorts, Baby!" 🩳

Thursday, November 5: Edmonton: partly cloudy, high 8°C, low -2°C, rain 10%, SW wind 9 km/h, holding the pattern 🌤️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 5, "Time to Break Out the Sweatpants" 👟 Aotearoa: morning drizzle, high 21°C, low 17°C, rain 30%, NNE wind 18 km/h 🌦️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 7, "Bust Out the Booty Shorts, Baby!" 🩳

Friday, November 6: Edmonton: partly cloudy, high 9°C, low 1°C, rain 10%, SW wind 11 km/h picking up from the west at night, a mild one by November standards ☀️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 5, "Time to Break Out the Sweatpants" 👟 Aotearoa: thunderstorms, high 22°C, low 16°C, rain 80% with around 6.4 mm expected, N wind 23 km/h ⛈️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 7, "Bust Out the Booty Shorts, Baby!" 🩳

Saturday, November 7: Edmonton: mostly sunny, high 8°C, low 1°C, rain 0%, WSW wind 14 km/h, a clean, dry Saturday to finish the week's list ☀️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 5, "Time to Break Out the Sweatpants" 👟 Aotearoa: showers, high 21°C, low 14°C, rain 60%, WNW wind 24 km/h 🌧️. Scale of the Pantaloon: Level 7, "Bust Out the Booty Shorts, Baby!" 🩳

⭐ Star Wars Galaxy Forecast

This week's Edmonton forecast maps onto a quiet corner of the galaxy, crew 🌌. Monday's cold dawn breaking into sunshine is Anoth, the storm-wracked world of three suns where the weather argues with itself all day and the afternoon wins ☀️. Tuesday's steady, workable grey is Borleias, the quiet agri-world the Rogues once held, all farmland patience and no drama 🌾. Wednesday's warm peak drifts to Corulag, a prosperous Core world where even the Imperial cadets polish their boots in the sun and everything runs a little smoother than it should ✨. Thursday's holding pattern is Esseles, shipyards and steady winds, the kind of day Garm Bel Iblis would spend quietly outmanoeuvring a problem before anyone noticed there was one 🛠️. Friday's mild lift with a building west wind is Qiilura, Gurlanin country, green and watchful, where the smart move is to finish your business before the weather and the locals change their minds 🌿. Keep Talon Karrde's rule in your pocket all week: the best information is the kind you gathered before you needed it. May your intel be good and your caf be hot, crew ⭐.

😂 The Daily Landscaping LOL

A termite walks into a bar 🪵🍺. He looks left… he looks right… he leans in close and whispers 😏✨

"Is the bar tender here?" 🤣

🛠️🌿 The Deep Dive: 5 Things Most Pro Landscapers Won't Tell You 🌿🛠️

1. Re-adhere loose retaining wall cap stones in this warm, dry window. Cap stones are the first thing freeze-thaw pops loose: water gets under the cap, freezes, and lifts it a fraction every cycle until it rocks underfoot. This week's dry 6 to 9°C afternoons are likely your last adhesive-friendly window, since landscape construction adhesive needs dry stone and above-freezing cure time. Lift any rocking cap, scrape the old adhesive and grit off both faces, run a fresh bead, and set it with weight on top overnight. A twenty minute fix now beats a lifted, cracked cap and a wobbly wall top in April.

2. Oil wooden tool handles with boiled linseed oil before winter storage. Everyone oils the metal and forgets the wood, then wonders why handles dry, splinter, and snap in year three. Wipe ash and hickory handles down with boiled linseed oil on a rag, let it soak 15 minutes, wipe off the excess, and repeat once the next day: the oil polymerizes inside the grain and keeps freeze-dry garage air from pulling the moisture out. Hang tools instead of leaning them in a corner, and a handle treated every fall will outlast two untreated ones. Wear gloves and lay oily rags flat outdoors to dry, since balled-up linseed rags can self-heat.

3. Fill low spots by walks and doors with dry screened loam, tamped in thin lifts. The sunken pocket beside a front walk is next spring's ice rink and next summer's ankle roller, and November's dry ground is the time to fix it, not the April mud season. Fill in lifts no deeper than about 5 cm at a time, tamp each lift firm, and finish slightly crowned, roughly a centimetre high, because the fill will settle over winter. Dry screened loam compacts honestly right now, while wet spring soil just smears and sinks. Come the first chinook melt, that spot sheds water instead of collecting it against the step.

4. Tie rose canes together in a loose bundle before you mound or cover them. Long hybrid tea and climbing rose canes left loose whip in winter wind, crack at the base, and saw against each other until the bark is wounded, and wounded canes are where dieback starts. Gather the canes and tie them in two or three places with soft twine or old pantyhose strips, snug enough to hold, loose enough not to cut bark. A bundled plant is also half the wrestling match when you mound soil over the crown or drop a cover over it. Untie in spring once the worst wind is past and prune to live wood from there.

5. Stretch a leaf net over the pond or water feature before it ices over. Every leaf that sinks into a pond this month rots under the ice all winter, feeding the algae bloom and the sour water you inherit in April. Stretch fine pond netting taut across the surface, pin or weight the edges on the bank, and lift it off to shake out the catch every week or two until leaf fall is truly done. Taut matters: a sagging net dips its leaf load into the water and becomes the problem it was hired to solve. Pull the net before deep freeze locks it into the ice, and spring startup gets a whole lot shorter.

🎶 Ron Hairemy's Songs That Guarantee LAWNgevity 🎵🌱🔥

Winnipeg soul silk, a naked-truth comedy confession, silent wars from Sweden, G-funk royalty with Nate Dogg on the hook, drum and bass out of Christchurch, and battle metal to close the gates. A shelf with passports from everywhere.

🎸 Momentum
😂 Morale
🧠 Focus
⚔️ Endurance
🎤 Reflection
🌌 Creativity

All music. No filler.
(Except comedy… because everybody needs a laugh.)
No Nickelback.
No Slipknot.
No T-Swizzle.
As it should be.

Canadian Track'O'The Day: "Take A Message" by Remy Shand (clean ✅). Remy Shand comes from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and he basically arrived fully formed in 2002 with his album The Way I Feel, a one-man neo-soul show where he wrote, produced, and played nearly everything himself 🇨🇦🎤. "Take A Message" was the single that carried it: smooth, pleading, and confident all at once, it helped him win the Juno for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year and land a Grammy nomination while most of the industry was still asking how to spell his name. For me, it is proof that a prairie kid in a bedroom studio can out-soul the big rooms if the craft is real. Play it on the slow drive, windows up, coffee in hand ☕.

Today's Musical Funny-Bone: "I Don't Look Good Naked Anymore" by The Snake Oil Willie Band (clean ✅). This is comedy country at its most honest: a cheerful, twanging confession about gravity, mirrors, and the slow betrayal of a body that used to be a lot more cooperative 🪞😂. It circulated for years as the song every uncle forwards to every other uncle, and it earned that run because the joke is gentle, the hook will not leave your head, and the delivery is pure front-porch grin. I love it for the same reason I love a good crew-room roast: everybody in the song is in on it. Queue it when the knees are creaking on a cold Monday and laugh instead of groaning 🎸.

Hair Whippin', Head Bangin', Finger Blazin' Therapy: "Silent Wars" by Arch Enemy (clean ✅, harsh vocals and full melodic death metal intensity throughout). Arch Enemy, built in Sweden around Michael Amott's guitar, open their 2003 album Anthems of Rebellion with this one, and it is Angela Gossow at her most ferocious, spitting an anti-war lyric over riffs that never sit still 🌑🔥. The Amott brothers' twin guitar work is the engine, melodic and surgical even at full speed, and the title alone should tell you this is thinking metal, not background noise. For me, it is the perfect cold-morning starter: quiet street, loud headphones, blood moving before the first shovel lifts. Play it like you mean it 🎃.

Tongue Trippin', Bar Spittin', Beat Killin' Bars: "Keep on Hustlin'" by Warren G ft. Young Jeezy, Bun B & Nate Dogg (clean ✅ per Spotify). Warren G carried the G-funk torch out of Long Beach, and this cut from his 2015 Regulate… G Funk Era, Part II project pairs him with Jeezy's grind talk, a heavyweight verse from Bun B of UGK, and a posthumous Nate Dogg hook that still sounds like sunshine on a lowrider 🎧🌴. Three regions, three generations, one unhurried groove: it is a masterclass in how confidence sounds when nobody is shouting. I reach for it on paperwork mornings, when the hustle is emails and phone calls instead of sod and stone, because the tempo keeps me moving without rushing me. Smooth fuel for a long week 🚗.

Māori Track / Aotearoa Pick: "In Colour" by Shapeshifter (clean ✅). Shapeshifter formed in Christchurch in 1999 and became Aotearoa's definitive live drum and bass institution, a real band playing electronic music with their hands, festival headliners from Glastonbury to home soil 🌊🎤. "In Colour" comes from their 2013 album Delta, their second straight New Zealand No. 1, and it is all widescreen chorus and lift, with vocalist Paora "P Digsss" Apera riding the top of it. I am filing this one honestly as an Aotearoa pick from the Kiwi classics pool, and it earns its place on pure summer energy alone, which is a public service in an Edmonton November. Play it when the grey needs evicting from your head 🌅.

Ron Hairemy Spotlight: "Battle Metal" by Turisas (clean ✅, though it is full folk metal with gang vocals, violin, and war paint energy). Turisas come from Hämeenlinna, Finland, and this is the title track of their 2004 debut, the record that launched a thousand foam swords at metal festivals across Europe ⚔️🎻. Accordion, fiddle, choirs chanting like an army with a melody problem: it should not work and it absolutely does, which is my favourite kind of music. For me, it is the official sound of turning a grim Monday list into a saga, because every job goes better when you narrate it like a campaign. March out to this one, crew 🛡️.

That's the goal. That's LAWNgevity. 🌱🔥

🌅 Conclusion

Joey Moss never scored a goal in that building, and Edmonton built him a statue anyway, because this city understands that the person who shows up for thirty-five years IS the story 🏒❤️. Your pro action hook for the week is right there in the Deep Dive: use these dry, sunny afternoons to re-adhere one rocking cap stone and oil the handles you will be gripping in April, while the weather is still cooperating 🔧. Shoutout to Sammy, holding the fort while home is two addresses at once, to Matt and Kyle and the truck runs still to come, and to Django and Snakey-Poo, who have strong opinions about boxes and no intention of helping move them 🐈📦. Poppy season is here too, so wear one, and remember the people whose showing up built the world we get to work in 🌺. If you liked today's blog, be sure to star, speak out, and stay a while for updates. Until next time, this has been Kaitiaki Hamon. Keep your stick on the ice. And may the Force be with you. Always! Ka kite, landscaping whānau!

Sincerely,
Kaitiaki Hamon (Ron Hairemy)

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