GRANDPA CLIMATE

     The other day the radio was on in the house and I heard, "Grandpa Climate." I thought for a minute about this and then it hit me. They're talking about me!

     I'm a Grandpa and I'm 85 years old. So what was the climate back at the beginning of my time.

    Then I thought of my Dad who was born in 1912? Oh , there's my Grandpa who was born in 1864 ? And then I thought back to my Great Grandpa who was born in 1840. 

    What was the climate like when these men were living? 180 years ago the common folks probably didn't have a thermometer. Information on climate was anecdotal. There would be some information about climate but it wouldn't be scientific. Both my grandparents could read. They used the Russian Cyrillic script. I'm not sure how much they could write. So information on climate at that time would be limited. I don't know if there is any of Grandpa or Grandma's writing left. 

    I have often told you about my time as a child and the great outdoors. It was very, very different than today. About 50% of the land was not developed. When I was a kid in the late 40's Canada's population was less than 10 000 000 .  This meant that much less carbon was produced. Global warming was probably not taking place. It seemed as if when winter came it stayed winter until spring. I remember getting what we called mild spells, but I don't remember snow thawing in the winter time like it does now. . 

    So I hope the term Grandpa climate makes people think about how much our climate has changed and that people will start to contribute to not letting the earth's temperature increase. 

   If you're a grandma or grandpa, what do you remember about climate?

PEASANT DAYS

      In my Jan. 10 post I happened to mention my grandparents without electricity or water. Some people  made comments to indicate that they had no experience with out services. 

     My paternal grandparents and great grand parents came from Russia in the early 1900's. They had lived in Russia for about 100 years. They were peasants. They made use of available materials for housing and food. So in Russia, they had clay houses. The roof was probably thatched. Here they could afford to get lumber for the roof of a clay house.

     My Dad was born in 1912 in a clay house with a dirt floor.  People liked their clay houses. They said they were cool in the summer and warm in the winter. 

    So many of the German people who came here to homestead had a clay house. Other people built sod houses which were equally functional. 

   Of course, there were other things that had to be developed to live with such a lack of conveniences.

   To keep warm in the winter they had layers of clothing long before outdoor enthusiasts came up with the idea. We had felt boots. These were boots that were made of felt. I can tell you that they were warm. There was an overshoe that kept your boot dry. We had combination fleece lined under wear. We had two layers of pants. They were warm. 

     Sometimes the houses were banked up with snow or straw. The floors in the wood houses were cold. They was no heat in the cellar. Since the heat source was coal and wood the pipes wood sometimes catch on fire. Most people let the fires go out before they went to bed for safety reasons. .

   So houses without electricity worked just fine. 

   People became accustomed to those conditions and thrived. 

   I am old enough to have lived with out electricity and no central heating. Our first house was a dilapidated board structure . I know that there is a photo of this old house but I'm not sure who has it. I remember Dad getting up in the morning and lighting the fire. We would bring our clothes into the main room and get dressed in front of the heater.

    I do not look back at these days as a hardship. We were prepared and were comfortable and enjoyed life with no electricity. . 

I MADE A MISTAKE

      I made a deduction on my last post and it was wrong. I assumed that the population of Esk was zero  as when I visited Esk in 2001 there were only two houses occupied. 

      My sister in law lives about three miles from Esk and she pointed out that I was wrong. She thinks that 2 people live in Esk and maybe more. My niece also pointed out that I was wrong. 

      Where would I be if I didn't have a good sister in law and niece. Thanks for  correcting me. 

CURIOUS AND CURIOSITY

          Mr. Pudding, from Yorkshire Pudding, likes to take a look at things that are very different like, my home village. He finds these odd places and lets his imagine run. 

         My home village is Esk, Saskatchewan. Well it was my home village. Today it is a ghost town with a population of 0.

       At it's largest it had a population of about 50.

     My grandparents retired to Esk in the late 40's. They had no electricity and water. They had a wood cook stove and wood heater for winter heat which was not great. Grandma had some chickens. 

    They bought flour, sugar, salt ,  coffee and a few more items at the local store. . They bought the few clothes in the next town which had a dry goods store. 

    Now there is an abandoned church which interests Mr Pudding. Did I go to Sunday school in that church etc. You can watch a 6 minute video to see what an abandoned village is like. The abandoned church is featured. 

    Our family did not attend that church but my brother was married in it in 1967 and it was closed shortly after that and the building was sold. Somebody bought it with the view of developing it as a house. It never happened. It would have made a very good house. The guy lived in a house trailer in the church yard and later moved away . The video is probably from 20 years ago and I'm not sure if the church is still there. 

    As children we were brought to the church and were given inoculations.(Not on Sundays)The late  1940's saw the immunization for communicable diseases.  You got a series of shots for each disease so we attended the church often for health reasons. 

    Now at one time this village of 50 people had 3 churches. All were Christian denominations. Why they had to be 3 separate denominations I'll never know? There was Lutheran, Baptist and United Evangelical Brethern. They did get along in the community. 

    I realize that it may be very difficult for people from almost any part of the world to understand what I have described. There are many differences in this world and this little village had it's differences. 

NUMBERS THAT IMPRESS.

       I have a friend who lives in a senior residence. He was 93 in Sept. I phone him 3  or 4 nights a week. He's quite lonely and enjoys a chat. He's one of the brighter people I ever met so he's interesting to visit with. The photo below is for his 93rd birthday. 

 

            The photos of old buildings  belonged to Mike. The farm first belonged to his parents and Mike farmed until he went broke according to him. 

     In each phone call he has something very interesting to talk about. He likes politics and science. He was an engineer.

    Last night he told me that his former high school had contacted him about his 75 th anniversary from finishing high school. That number just about blew me over. They were contacting as many former students and teachers as they could find. And guess what? They found one of his teachers still living   at 105.  Mike was pretty happy about this information. I thought it was a big number to finish high school 75 years ago. I finished high school 67 years ago. My numbers don't compare with his. 

    At  the present time Mike doesn't have plans to attend the reunion as they don't have dates or anything else arranged at this time.

    None of my former teachers are living. 

KISSING!

      I rarely look back at old posts. Somehow today I landed on a post from Fri July 6, 2012. What was the topic? International Kissing Day!

     So, who am I to write about kissing? But you can go back to the post and see what I wrote, in my ignorance.

     The thing that shocked me was the list of commenters I had. I had completely forgotten most of the people who made comments on that post. There are only three people from that time who still follow my blog and make comments. So of the seventeen people who commented , 14 of them have disappeared. 

    The three bloggers who remain from that time are Far Side of Fifty, Eye on the Edge and Crumbly acres.  

    Some of them had excellent blogs but somehow ceased blogging. Some were lurkers who only made comments. 

    One  blog that had over a thousand followers ceased. That was Tex Wise girl. She posted every day. Do any of you remember her? 

     Maybe I should look back at more old posts and could be surprised at some of the topics. Of course, in 2012, I was 12 years younger, so just a young guy!

WEATHER REPORT

         Since I have nothing to write about , I will give you the weather report. I don't need to say that it's winter here and it can get very severe. 

        Our recent weather has been on the cold side. Today our high was minus 15 C and there was some wind. It was clear and sunny. I don't know what the wind chill would have been but it made for an uncomfortable day. 

      So these are typical winter days. We can get cold spells which are much colder than today. When a cold spell sets in it can last from a few days to several weeks.

     And oh yes, the days are getting longer. On Winter solstice we had 7 hours and 14 minutes of sun. Today we had 7 hours and 53 minutes of sun. Today got longer by one minute and 14 seconds. 

     My interest in weather goes back a long way. As I've said many times, as a child I played outdoors summer and winter. I went to the Arctic in the 60's and you had to be aware of the weather. There was a weather station where I lived and I got to know some of the weather people and talked about weather very often. There were no roads so traffic was by air. Weather was extremely important. 

    When I was in the eastern arctic, we were asked for weather reports many times. I had a radio at my house and was contacted when they were planning a flight. There were weather hazards that pilots had to watch for. 

    The only time I had a bad flight was because of weather. The airplane began to ice up. This was the end of September. As more ice built up the airplane became heavier and more power was given. I would have landed on a small lake before getting to our destination. The pilot wanted to get to the settlement. It was a bad landing. The pilot pulled the throttle back and the airplane sank like a rock. He quickly pulled the throttle back and we made a very rough landing. We more or les just plopped heavily into the  water. 

    So  I find weather interesting and it is important.