EIGHT PRAIRIE BOYS

           I ran across this photo a few days ago and it made me think of some family history

          You see eight very solid prairie boys in this photo.

           We were all born and raised on the Canadian prairie in  prairie in Saskatchewan. When I lived there in the forties and fifties ,it was not all developed and was a very pleasant land. 

           The eight males in the photo were neighbors and relatives. My mother , Dorothy and their mother Margaret, were cousins so that makes these boys some kind of cousin.

          There were four boys in each family. In this photo the ages would be about three to twenty four. The two families did many things together. For example, we shared Christmas. Our Dad's worked together on many farming activities. We lived  a mile apart so as kids we played together and went from one farm to the other.

        Now this photo was  taken about sixty seven years  ago. Two of these boys farmed. One was a teacher and one was a nurse. Two of them made their living as musicians. One was a piano technician. One was an engineer who spent time at NASA as a tool maker. 

     My cousins all moved to California. My family stayed in Canada. I live 400 miles away from my three brothers.

     In the one family all are deceased and in my family all are still living.

 

ORANGE JUICE

     I think we've been buying frozen orange juice since it was first sold. So it was with some concern that we learned frozen orange juice was to be taken off the market. I guess the supply lasted about 6 months.

    So the juice became unavailable at my usual grocery store. Walmart always had frozen orange juice for  better price.

    So I'll  try Walmart. I looked in the usual place for frozen juice but found nothing. No frozen juice of any kind. It was just gone.

    There was a fellow filling shelves so I thought I'd ask him if there was any frozen orange juice. Now this fellow is quite handicapped. He went up and down the aisle. He knew what he was looking for  and he came back to me and said there was no more frozen orange juice.

   Then he got  big twinkle in his eye and said you could take home some orange juice and freeze it.

    He knew his comment was a zinger and we both had a good laugh. Other customers looked around to see what we were laughing about.

THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

     I have always heard the term the "Merry Month of May". I've never thought much about it. To me it seemed like just an expression. The expression didn't apply to my world. Why should I consider it? In many years here, May is not a merry month. We still get some cold and nasty weather. There are few flowers that bloom. Right now the only flower I have is the blue bell.

    So finally after 86 times with Merry Month of May I decided to look into it. Is there some deeper meaning than just a catchy phrase.?

    Well I was surprised to see that there are many famous references to the Merry Month of May. There are poems. Thomas Dekker's poem is well known. There are popular songs by Stephen Foster and Nelson Eddy.

    I was looking for a special celebration of the day. The only thing I can find is the making and exchange of home made baskets that are exchanged with friends. 

    Oh yes,  there  are merry month of M cross  word puzzles.

    However, I do like the term and the pleasant thoughts that go with it. I'm glad I looked it up.

   

and IT SNOWED AGAIN

      We've had some nasty spring weather for the last three days. It's been very windy with snow flurries which have been enough for snow to accumulate on the ground.

     We had wind gusts reaching 80 Km per hour. If you were in parking lots the wind blew the dust around enough to put dust in your eye.

    Roads and traffic were in poor shape. In some areas people had to remain in their vehicles for 20 hours.

   In my yard an old wooden tool shed blew over . The shed was very old and should have been replaced so now it will be replaced.

MR PUDDING

    I have been following Mr. Pudding on his Yorkshire blog for many years, He covers a wide variety of topics and does all of them well.

    He's famous for his long walks up in the hills and  taking many photos.

  He's and avid sports fan.

  He even writes poetry.

  He's a gardener and excellent cook.

   He's an obsessive  grandfather. (Lucky grandchildren.)

     As you can see as well  as good  quality he tries to make things interesting. So what does Mr. Pudding do. He throws in a few contests. The latest was to see if people could identify ten bloggers from their photos.

   He's famous for his Laughing Horse awards. He talks about the Laughing Horse awards for days leading up to the awards.

   So there is great effort to make the blog interesting. 

  So Yorkshire pudding is high quality and interesting.

  No doubt Mr. Pudding was an excellent teacher as I'm sure he tried to make everything interesting for the kids

    So keep on writing such an interesting blog.. I'll be there reading it.

STORIES

         A few days ago I was listening to  CBC and they had one of Stuart McLean's stories on the program.

       Stuart Mclean  is one of Canada's best loved story tellers. I think his best stories are about a fictional community where he has the people reacting to each other. The stories are humorous and goofy.

    His main characters are a family made up of (Dave) , Morley and their two Children. There are two  neighbors who are very different.

    The story the other day involved Dave cleaning his car. When Dave's car was new he kept it spotlessly clean. Gradually the cleaning was less and less.

   So on this spring day Dave began cleaning his car. Amongst all the junk on the floor, Dave found a plant growing. Dave didn't want to throw the plant out but didn't know what to do about it so he left it there hoping Morley , his wife would not find it. 

    Sooner or later the plant had to be moved from the car  and Dave planted it in the garden.

    Years later the little plant that started growing in Dave's car  became a tree in his garden.

    I highly recommend these stories. Either you read them your self or get an audio book and you hear Stuart's voice and how he emphasizes the story.

JOURNALS

        I kept a journal from 1979 t0 1982. I wish I had kept a journal for all my adult years.

        I found that when I go went back to the journals , the whole day popped into my head not just the notes in the journal. Now that doesn't happen so much anymore. I should have kept rereading the journals.

      So for your reading pleasure I will give you my journal post from April 18, 1978.

          

        I always included a comment on the weather. We thought swimming was very important so had the kids in swimming lessons. So it  was a busy  day when my son went to cubs after swimming lessons. I usually made a comment on birds.

     So that's some of what happened 46 years ago.