THE BEST WAY TO EAT A TOMATO!

      I love gardening...vegetable gardening. I like to eat fresh produce that comes directly out of the soil. I do not like produce from the store. So when I write about a garden it's not as many of you think as a flower garden. I'm not very good when it comes to growing flowers but I certainly appreciate them.

      Gardening is in my genes if that is possible. My maternal grandfather was  obsessed with gardening. For part of his life he made his living with a market garden. My paternal grandmother worked hard at her garden as it was a vital source of food. My Dad loved gardening so gardening is in the family.

     Now one of my favorite plants to grow and eat is the tomato. Now I have a favorite way to eat a tomato and I learned it as a boy. We would come home from school and usually we had some small thing to eat before we did our chores. In the fall there was usually a box of tomatoes at the door. We would help ourselves to two or three of the best. If somebody managed to grab a salt shaker so much the better. Then we would eat tomatoes as you would an apple! These tomatoes were fresh and juicy. I ate one the other day . It was just great.

     Try it!

EDUCATION OF A PRAIRIE BOY PART 6

      I will include years 6 & 7 together as yes, I had the same teacher for those two years. Also remember, that my gr 6 and 7 happened in 1950 to 1952. Most of you weren't running around at that time.

     First, I will cover something that applies to all years of my education...outdoor play. Playing was for most , the very best part of school . When I think back I am surprised at how much we did and how much fun we had. The peak enrolment when I was in the school was 17,  from gr 1 to 9. We had recesses of 15 minutes in the morning and afternoon. We had an hour at lunch time. Sometimes lunches were eaten very quickly so that we could resume play.

    All play was organized by the students. The older kids did the most of the organizing.

     The main activity was ball. One side was always short one player as you need 18 players. Not to worry. The little guys were the fielders or ball getters. They were like a dog and ran and got the ball and brought it back. Arrangements were made so that every hit wasn't a home run. You only got one base on an infield ball. Two bases if the ball landed in the oufield.  There were variations that were played. Scub! There were many names for this game. Students were placed in an order...first batter, then catcher, pitcher , first base. The idea was to hit and run to first base and back. You stayed at bat as long as you could do this. If you went out you went to the bottom of the numbers and the catcher became the batter and everybody moved up one place. 

     Another version was 500. A batter would hit the ball into a group of players. If you caught a fly ball you got 100 points. A grounder 50 points . The first person who got 500 points became the batter. 

   This certainly added variety to our playing.

   In the winter we played Fox and Goose, prisoner's base, soccer and built snow houses and made tunnels in the snow. The prairies were open . The wind blew the snow for days on end. The blowing snow formed many snow banks. The snow was quite hard as you could always walk over it.

   Anty I Over was enjoyed in the summer. 

   Also for gr 6, we got a brand new school building. No more wind moaning through the building.. It was a treat. We had oil heating so the room stayed the same temperature all day and night. 

   The new school had one tiny room as a library and more books than the old school. As I said before I finished my work as fast as possible so I could go in the little library and read. There was a very old set of encyclopedias which I spent a lot of time reading. My favorite book was Planes for Bob and Andy. So I really wanted to be a pilot. I did get my pilot's license when I was 25. I also remember reading Smokie and Black Beauty. 

    Again, I was the only student in my grade. I worked hard so that I could have free time and avoid the teacher. The teacher had to spend the most time with the little guys. I bragged about being first in my class but Yorkshire Pudding also reminded me that I was last as well!

     The teacher was pretty good with music and she worked hard. Our work was marked which is more than some of the other teachers did. She made the mistake of praising everything about the previous school she taught in. Very soon she had lost our report. We did not like her .

    I have no pictures from this time as the teacher did not organize photos. She took photos for herself but they were not distributed to the students.

BIRDING AT THREE MILE BEND

      This Saturday we spent 2 hours at a location called Three Mile Bend. It's an area along the Red Deer River that was mined for gravel and was not reclaimed. Most of it has been left for 50 years so there is a combination of ponds and forested areas in various stages of recovery.

     It can be an excellent birding area in June when there are many warblers along the banks of the river. This Saturday was poor as it's an off leash dog park so there were too many dogs and people for good birding.

   We did see 14 species.

    Freestyle skiing had been very active here for a long time. This is the practice facility. This is the top of the ramp . Water runs on the ramp surface and they can ski down the ramp. 

EDUCATION OF A PRAIRIE BOY PART 5

      I will put years 3,4 and 5 together simply because I had the same teacher for those years. 

     First to cover something I should have mentioned in a previous post. When I started grade one in 1945 there was one other student in grade one with me. At the end of Grade 3 she went to another school so I was the only one in the grade. So I was top in my class from gr 4 to 9. Ha! Ha!

    Now the teacher I had for these three grades had almost ten years experience. She obviously liked teaching and she was good at it. In fact, she was a way ahead of her time when it came to teaching strategy. She had field trips. Who else had field trips at that time. We would take our lunch and spend the whole day wondering through the nearby trees, fields, grasslands and wetlands. We had our lunch out in the field which was cool. We each came back with a collection. The collection might include, leaves branches, flowers and insects. The next few days at school we did many different things with our collections. We traced and did art projects. In science we learned the names of some of the things we brought back. We also had to write or draw about our observations.

    This teacher was also exceptional at music. We did much singing and had a few rhythm bands. We also all bought small coping saws and made fancy designs in wood which we would paint and take home to our Moms. My Mom still had one of mine when she died.

    We also went to other schools to play ball. We also had some picnics. 

    In these schools we all ate lunch in the classroom including the teacher. This teacher had her own little house on the school yard and she would go to her house to have lunch and leave us to eat our lunch in the classroom. Well, one day some little guy threw a chalk brush and instantly bedlam broke out. Chalk brushes flew. Many hit the walls so there were chalk brush marks all over the room. Dust? Lots of chalk dust.  We were so involved in this activity that we forgot all about the teacher. She came in the room and stood for a minute before we knew she was there. She had ample time to see who the culprits were. To say the least she was upset and we got the strap.

    Lunch was an important part of a one room school day. Most of the time we ate in the classroom. But if it was nice we ate outside. Kids would pick a favorite place to eat with their friends. Sometimes it was in the shelter of deep grass. sometimes it was in a sunny location. I remember one of these lunches eating the biggest juiciest pear ever. We traded lunch all the time.

    We always had to say grace before we ate. The grace we said or sung depended on the teacher we had. So sometimes it was "Come Lord Jesus be our guest" Sometimes it was "God is good. God is great." And sometimes we sang "Be present at our table Lord."

    I didn't take a horse to school but some kids did. That meant that they had to feed their horse at noon.

   This teacher was on the go all the time . Lessons were taught even though they were brief. 

   I was on my own for gr 4 and 5. I liked being told what to do and then go and do it. I liked to be by myself. If I finished my work I could read. 

    This teacher made sure that pictures were taken and that she got copies for each of us. Somehow she found a commercial photography who would take a school picture. No other school had this. So this photo was done by a special photographer.

    You've seen these photos on another post.

    

BIRDING AT MACKENZIE TRAILS

      So this Saturday we went to a location called Mackenzie trails. It's a park made up of heavy old growth forest, meadow and wetlands. All of this is along the river. Much of the area has had gravel taken out of it. There are many great trails for walking and cycling. This also makes it easy to bird. On occasion we do go off the trails. There is also a pond of 5 acres.

     So it makes it an excellent place to go birding. Yesterday the visibility was very poor because of the smoke. However we did see 23 species. We were surprised to see quite a few warblers here. We identified the yellow rumps but there were two other species and we couldn't get a good look at them to make an identification.

EDUCATION OF A PRAIRIE BOY PART 4

      Well, it's taken me awhile to get in a classroom for more or less formal education. 

     I will unfortunately be looking at this from under a few different hats. Some of it will be through the eyes of a little boy. Some of it will be from and adult and some of it from a teacher's point of view. We all think back to our school days and remember when we were children. Things change as we gradually grow older. Sometimes what my brother and I remember are very different. The adult point of view comes from us and our view of children. I taught for 37 years. That's enough to skew any memory. I also did some teacher supervision and evaluation. Did I mention that I had many student teachers over the years. That really changes what's under the hat.

    The typical one room school had students in each grade from one to eight or even nine and ten.  The highest enrolment in my school was 17. When I left there were only six kids left in the school. The school closed the next year.

     In the one room schools the teaching strategy was to tell each class what to do in that period of time. That may have taken two or three minutes.The kids would read a chapter of whatever it was and then answer some questions. Math lessons were very brief and then get to work and do a page or two of arithmetic questions. The good teachers would have activities that involved the whole school at one time. An example would be music. The teacher spent the most time with the younger students as they were not independent.

     The good teachers arranged things so that kids worked together. Kids are very good at teaching each other.

    I started school in 1945. We had two teachers that year. A  very quiet lady took us to Christmas break and then left to get married. I don't remember much about her except that she was very quiet. A young guy came after Christmas to finish the year. He had just finished high school. I remember having a lot of fun when he was there. However, I did learn to read well. It was the year that the Dick and Jane series was introduced to our school so we had the old reading series as well as Dick and Jane.

    For gr. two my brother started school. We had a very  quiet introverted lady for our teacher. Again , I don't remember much. We probably didn't do anything much. I remember we got into trouble a few times as we forgot we were in school and acted like brothers who fooled around.

   There were some major events that took place each year. One was the Christmas concert. Much of December was taken to practice putting together the program. There would be songs by the whole group and then music from smaller groups. REcitations were a favorite. Small skits were put on. And yes if the school was any good at all they had a rhythm band. One thing that I'll never forget is that I got kicked out of the rhythm band. I probably couldn't keep the rhythm but the problem was that I was playing sticks and my brother and I decided to hit each other. Needless to say, the battle got carried away 

    Now life out of school was still going on. What we learned in school helped us to learn more from our daily experience.

    So I did finish grade two. And I promise that my next post will take me to Gr. 3.

SATURDAY BIRDING

     We had another good morning of birding. We went to Hazlett Lake which is a small local lake on the edge of town. It's private property but one of the favorite places the group likes to go.

     Today there were very few birds on the water. It's still a little early for the main migration of waterfowl. We saw 18 species today and that's without a lot of water birds.

    The family that owns the property has had their own golf course for many years. No one else plays this course.

    Estelle is making her way from the shore. the riparian area has been taken over by canary reed grass. Most native riparian plants have disappeared.

      Bertha makes her way from the shore.

     I found a tree that had recently been damaged by lightening. 

    A field of canola that has been swathed and ready for harvest.

     The original family home.