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.

SNOW

 Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

     Yes, it definitely is a Christmas tune sung by many singers like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.

     Why am I bringing up this topic? Well we had a major snow storm last night. We had about 10 cm of snow with lots of wind. South east of us there was much more snow and wind. So across the Canadian prairies and Montana and North Dakota had much more snow.

    So it was  very dull this morning when I took these photos. It was still snowing.

TREES

       I think that I shall never see, 

      A poem as lovely as a tree.

         As a child I remember liking this poem. Some wise teacher must have shared this poem with us. Over the years, I kept seeing this poem. I still like it.

      In my last post I wrote about prowling round farm houses that were unlocked. 

     The last few days have  been windy and I've watched the wind in the trees.

     Well, we had more adventures. There wasn't a tree we didn't like to climb except for spruce trees. Where we were on the prairies  and   20 ft tree was considered large and there were few of them. 

     In the odd place non native  trees had been planted and they were large. They were poplars of some kind and they grew tall and spread out. These were  our favorite trees to climb. It's a good thing they were some distance from home so we didn't climb them very often. 

    So this is where I'm going with this post. I have never forgotten the feeling of being up in these trees.

    There needed to be a small breeze. The branches moved but the whole tree twisted slightly so there were two different movements at the same time. It was a pleasant and soothing sensation. We seemed to understand that since these were larger trees than we were used that there was some risk.

     So for those who  climbed trees when you were kids I hope you remember this pleasant ride in the tree.

LEARNING

       In my last post I was talking about free range kids to the extreme. We not only visited vacant houses but explored every aspect of the land. If it was there, we investigated and played. We explored.

       In the 1950's where I was raised, the whole area was surveyed by seismic . As with many things in that age there were no regulations. The holes were drilled and piped. When the shot was fired the crew left things as they were.

     I remember as little boys watching the seismic crew from the school yard and just waiting to go over to the well and drop pebbles down the well. We liked to hear the pebbles drop off the pipe walls as the pebble went down the well.

   I've often used this sound as one of the descriptions for learning.

  When we learn something new it influences most other things we have learned. Coloring takes place. Things are added to what we already know.  The more we know, the more we gain from new material.

    I had the  privilege to teach a boy who was  to become the top pediatrician in Canada. After most things were said, Bruce would giggle. Things were going around in his head as he soaked up new material and it influenced material he already knew.

    The giggle was a little annoying at the time but over the years when I understood the learning process better, the giggle made sense.

      So I guess I learned something by dropping pebbles down the well.

GUILT

       I listen to CBC quite often and try to catch the morning show from 8:30 to 10. They have interesting topics and people to interview.

      A couple of mornings ago the subject was guilt and in about one minute many things made sense in my life. We have to confront our guilt and solve issues that bother us.

     Since I was  teacher there is always one situation that amuses me. Every once in a while  I meet  a former student. The odd one goes on about apologizing for bad behavior. I look at them and I am puzzled. I did not consider that they were poorly behaved. They have felt guilty about their performance and had to make an apology. One guy working on a road crew on my street got out of his truck and marched up to me with an apology and concluded it with, "And I apologise for my friends too." I still get a chuckle out of that one.

    A dozen or so posts ago I wrote about breaking the back window in a neighbor's car. I have felt guilt ever since. The man died shortly after and I had no one to apologise to. My friends who stood and watched me get no end of fun by teasing me about this incident.

    In the rural area we lived  in, houses were rarely locked. Our house was never locked. So when my brother and  I were little we would sometimes wander  through some of the unlocked houses. Yes, I feel guilty about doing such a thing.

    I think most of us have done things that we regret. We feel guilty about it. Sometimes it just has to lie there.