PHOTOS OF PRAIRIE BOYS

      Yesterday I forgot to put in the photos of the prairie boys. The old guy is getting old.

      So here's the photo that should have been in yesterday's post.

     My apologies for the poor quality.

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.

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.

0PP0RTUNITIES

       Sometimes there are very few opportunities for photos.  Sometimes thee are opportunities but your too slow to take advantage of the,.

     Well, photos fell into my lap this week.

     Usually I have jack rabbit photos. These critters were a little bigger than jack rabbits.

     I was going for a walk a few days ago. I got around the bend from my house and laying down a few  feet from the road was a cow moose. She  was about 150 m from my house and about 40 m from me. I had a good look at her and talked to her a bit. She was not going to get up and go anywhere. I walked a little further and here twins were there.

    I continued on my walk. I got back to the house and suddenly thought. What am I doing? Why aren't  I taking photos? I hurried, got the camera and got out where I saw the moose. Two photos  and my camera batteries were dead. So hurry back to the house and put in new batteries. I went back out and the moose were still there. It was very bright so really difficult to get photos. You just had to point and shoot.

   While taking photos four white tailed deer came along. So I also have photos of deer.

  So yesterday you saw the first digital phots I took and today you see the last digital phots I took.

IT WORKS

       I have been slowly working on transferring my photos from my old computer.

       First, I had to find out that I would need a memory stick. 

       Then I had to figure out how to download to the memory stick. Funny things happened. First, I loaded about a dozen files and then zip it decided to load about 4000 photos on it's own.

      Well, I didn't know if anything loaded or not so I thought I'd check. Things looked wonderful until I discovered that I was on the old computer and not the memory stick. That was a blow to my confidence. So okay, the photos were on my memory stick..

      Well then it took a while for me to try using a photo from the memory stick. I finally got up courage and then had to look around and find out how to open a file on blogger. After about an hour it worked.

      So for today's blog, I will show you the second photo I every took on a digital camera. Here I am in 2008 watching birds about a km from my house.  

     

I FOUND MY CAMERA

      Well, I didn't lose my camera. I didn't use it when I should have. One of my commenters reminded me that I hadn't taken a photo when I should have.

     I should have taken a photo  of the rabbit and it's changing color. So here is the jack rabbit  starting to look a little ragged.

     This was taken out of the back window of my house.

SENIOR RELATIONSHIPS

       My 81 year old brother found a girlfriend a while ago or maybe some older lady found a boyfriend. I'm not sure which. It's a happy time for both of them. They got permission or a thumbs up from their kids. So they're jumping through the proper hoops.

       One thing my brother said to me is, "Why do they make it so hard for old guys to get married?" The statement took me by surprise. 

     He went on to tell me what some of the difficult issues are. If you get married, benefits from your previous spouse are cancelled. So CPP(Canada pension plan,, OAS(Old Age Security) are cancelled from the deceased spouse's account. Many seniors depend on these benefits to some extent. The  benefits are also cancelled if you live common law and they find you.

     I suppose in some cases it would be a sizable loss depending on the previous spouses status.

     So  this was  something that was a big surprise to me.

CHANGE OF RABBIT COLOR

        Since the rabbits hang around my yard quite a bit , I get to make interesting observations and then curiosity makes me look things up. This last while one animal has made my yard his/her location for the day. They are not very active in the day as they rest  and groom.

       So two weeks ago I started noticing small changes in color of the rabbit's coat. All winter the jack rabbits have had a very thick white coat. The white coat is great as it provides warmth and camouflage in the winter snow.

      So I got thinking about what makes the process happen. It's primarily a molting process. The photo period provides the start  of the molting process. So changing light causes hormones to do their work. Biology  continues the process.

      So now the big white coat is falling off. I find large tufts of white fur around my yard. A new summer coat is growing in which will be a brown/gray which provides camouflage in a summer environment. It is also much cooler and prevents the  animal from overheating.

     The change in molt is slow but is never the less  happening.

FIRST DAY OF SPRING.

          So here we  are on the supposed first day of spring. It's a little more complicated. March 17 gave us very close the equal day and night. 

        So I'll give you the sunrise and sunset for today.  The sun rose at 7:35 am and sets at 7:50 PM . The day length is 12 hours, 15 minutes and 38 seconds.  The actual spring is when the sun crosses to the north side of the equator.

      However ,I'll take the first day of spring as I'm hoping for warmer weather.

      We still have lots of snow and all lakes are frozen as well as most rivers. However , at this time of year things start melting very rapidly.

      Birds are coming back. A few crows have been here for about two weeks. We do have some crows that over winter here but I didn't see any this winter. Geese have arrived. I haven't been out where I would see more birds.

     So I'm looking forward to better days.

     Some how or other my camera didn't seem to work or was it the photographer as I didn't get any photos.

CANADA GEESE

    Yesterday morning, I saw several flocks of Canada geese fly over. We don't have any open water except for some parts of rivers. Now, in some fields the snow is gone and they could feed.

    Nevertheless, they are probably not going to land here and stay. No, the first geese here are going on. Water isn't open here and they are flying further north, What gives?

   Well, some Canada geese fly to lakes on the arctic coast.  They stay  on the ice for six to eight weeks. They eat  debris on the ice from material that has blown on the ice during the winter. There are also insects on the ice at that time of year. There will be fresh water on top of the ice.

   When most of the snow  and ice have melted they will nest. 

   Now Innuit hunters take advantage of this situation and harvest large numbers of geese. They use white material to make a blind that allows them to move. They are a able to harvest many geese. Meat and down it valuable at that time. These days hunters fly out and make a camp and stay a few days. People who have permanent jobs go on these hunts.  

      I don't know about their behavior in the fall. I do know that it's pretty cool when flying, to look down and see flocks of geese below you.

NOISE

      A  couple mornings ago I was in the back of the house and heard a very loud strange noise. I thought that it must be something outside so I ran to the back door to open it and see if the noise came from outside. As soon as I got to the back door I knew the noise was coming from in the house. More than that it came from downstairs.

      I bounced down the stairs and was getting closer to the noise. The noise came from under the stairwell and there I found my sump pump running. Funny thing but there was no water in the sump. It's winter and we don't have water out side. Well,  my brain told me to pull the plug out for the sump pump and the noise stopped immediately.

    Well.  I still had  to find out why the  sump pump suddenly started  running. Sump pumps don't pump snow.

   I soon found out that the cable holding the floats had rusted and broke. 

    However, I will fix my sump pump now so it's ready for any water in the spring or summer

SNOW

     Yesterday we had about four or five cm of snow. That's not much but we don't get a lot of snow. 

The snow was powder so it was fluffy and dry. It was easy to shovel as it was light. Now it was about minus 8 below. So this would be winter snow as compared to spring snow which is heavy and wet.

      Now' just recently I transferred my photos from an old hard drive to a memory stick. There were  close to 8000 photos, It was a good time to cull some photos. I discarded about 4000 photos, Many photos were snow photos. It looked like I never saw a snow flake I didn't like and by the way, I didn't take any snow photos yesterday.

        I had never transferred  anything to a memory stick so it was a bit of a surprise, I downloaded 6 files and then it said it was downloading 4441 photos! When It was finished I looked at what I had. I thought they were all jumbled up. As with any problem like this I waited a couple of days before I went back to the photos. Upon inspection , I found that the photos were in exactly the order they had been in.

     Since I did not make files the computer filed them by date. 

   I do have a few things to learn.

A VISIT TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM

•       In the past ten days the micro manager and I have caught one of he most miserable head colds we've ever had. I've been retired for 28 years and have rarely had a head cold. We have no idea where we picked it up. We think it may have been in the hospital that the micro Manager had her cataract surgery,
•       But that isn't what this post is about. Yesterday afternoon the Micro Manager had a coughing spell that was alarming. We decided  to  go to the emergency rather than wait until when she  got sicker.
•        We got to emergency about 6:30. PM
•      We had been told that there was a wait of about 3 and a half hours. At 10 I asked how long we still had to wait. Well there were four people ahead of us. How long would that take? Well it took until one AM for us to get in a room. It took another hour to see a doctor  
•      So we got out of the treatment area about 2 AM. We got home just before  3 AM and he did not prescribe anything for us to do.

              We got home just before 3 AM. That's six  hours for two elderly people to wait around. Apparently with this bug you just have to tough it out as there isn't anything to treat it.

MARCH WEATHER

       Here in Central Alberta, Canada, March is considered to be a spring month although with extremes.

       Today was a good example. When I got up today there was light rain. It was about plus 2 C. The rain soon stopped and the wind started. Then snow flurries occurred. The rain lasted about 30 minutes. Just enough to make things wet. The light snow lasted about 60 minutes.  

      March can be very windy. Weather systems go through quickly. We tend to get much precipitation in March.

      So today was a day that's quite common in March. You feel the warmth from the sun ,but the wind makes it feel cold. 

      So what will tomorrow bring? It's supposed to get cold tomorrow. 

NO CARTS

       I went to the local Super Store this morning for a few items. Super Store is the equivalent of Walmart here. I want you to get the idea that this is a large store.

     When I went in the store, there were only five  carts  in the stand. No worry! More carts  will soon be brought in.

    I finished my shopping and on the way to the car someone asked for my cart. He would come to the car while I unload my groceries. Usually, I would get very suspicious about some one wanting my cart. There are many homeless in this rea and they ask for your cart so that they get your change. I  looked  around and there were no carts in the stand . The guy was desperate. 

     So what was going on? The store was replacing the carts with new ones. The company supplying  the  new  carts   took all the old ones before any new ones were brought in.

    Well, this just does make sense to me. Why would a store, on a busy Saturday, not have shopping carts ?

MARCH 1

          I'm more than nerdy about weather . I like the science of weather as how it works with low pressure high pressure systems. When  I was in grade school I liked the weather unit in science. I had many airplane rides in The Northwest Territories. the pilots had to have a good  sense of the weather. The only time I was in danger of crashing is when the pilot misjudged the weather. Well to be  fair the weather  was tricky. The  airplane iced up.

       We did many radio reports on weather and that had to good enough in the 60's.

       What high tech I do remember is when the first satellites began producing weather   reports. I remember the first and only time we  used it,

       But today my topic is March' In like  a lion and out like a .lamb,.We spend time debating whetherr the weather  we had was lamb or lion! Yester dsy we could have had a discussion.

      At midnight it was  minus 18 C and calm, Shortly after  noon it was plus 5 and no wind It was a beautiful day.

    So we'll see what the weather is like on March 31

WINTER

         Our winter weather has been fairly standard this year although many people would disagree with me. But that's typical of winter weather discussions.

        We've had some long spells of very cold weather. Lows below minus 30 C  for two or three weeks without a break. Then we had two and a half weeks of record breaking mild weather.

       On Thur. Feb.26 it was plus ten. In some places the roads were becoming slushy. By midnight it was minus 10. 

     So what I'm trying to say is that winter weather is variable with longer spells of cold and warm. In March the weather changes but the changes are quicker so the times of cold and warm are quicker.

     So I'm about to look at the length of days. We are starting to notice warming from the sun,

    I can get hopeful about spring but it's not here yet.

SURPRISE!

       The micro Manager had her cataract surgery on Monday and everything went very well. You are left feeling somewhat fatigued from the anesthetic. You  go to the surgeon the next morning at 8 AM for a check up. He pronounced her as very good.

      So we had planned ahead as  to how things would be done. I would do the cooking and put in the eyedrops. It's not really working that way but things are being looked after. 

     I was out shovelling today  when next door neighbor D crossed the fence. She was carrying a few containers and she told me that they were for the next too suppers. What a gift. It beats the beans on toast that was my menu. So there was a container of pasta and one of beef dip. So taking one look at the containers I said there's enough for 2 meals in each container.

    There's always a great visit when D comes over.

    So I asked how D knew that the surgery had been done. We didn't tell you. She said "I read it on your blog." Well that just blew my mind. I am always surprised when locals read the blog.

   While I was shovelling I noticed D take some containers to her truck. I thought  some people are going to be treated with some of D's treats. Two minutes later D was at my door with the containers.

TOUGH WEEKS AHEAD.

         I'm expecting to have three a tough weeks ahead for me. Okay , I'm going to whine about  a few things.

      The Micro Manager is about to get a cataract looked after on Wednesday. Well , what's that got to do with me? The hospital where cataract surgeries are done is about 20 miles away. So what's the matter? Can't you drive? Well, I can drive. It's the passenger that is the problem. The Micro manager is an extremely anxious person. It's very hard to drive when she's in the car. She sees all kinds of problems that aren't there.

    Eye drops are required four times a day for 3 weeks. Let me tell you my experience with giving eyedrops is zero. I'm also up against the Micro Manager's record. Three years ago I had both eyes done with cataracts. It was over a period of 6 weeks with close to 500 drops...474 to be  more precise. 

    Cataract surgery is quite routine but it's still somewhat stressful; They did my second one without an anesthetic.

    The Micro manager is a poor patient so I'm not looking forward to things.

MORE READING

      The comments from my last post about reading has made me think about a few other things. I often think about how people learn to read. 

     When I attended school in the late 40's and early  50's we  had  a system that was very limited.  We had one room rural schools. We had people teaching with little or no training. Correspondence courses were developed but how do you expect a six year old to learn to read taking correspondence. These rural schools met their end in the late 40's  and  early 50's , The school I went to called Hiawatha, closed in 1955. There were 6 student enrolled in the last year. They were all boys consisting of three sets of brothers. My two brothers attended the last year.

    My first year of teaching in 1958 ,was in a rural school that had nine students. It was closed the next year. I had three grade ones. One little guy knew how to read but jumped through all the hoops. The other little boy was never going to read. I think the little girl learned from my efforts.

     I don't ever remember learning to read. I remember going through the work books and doing assignments but it was nothing I learned. I liked the work books.

    So after all this rambling , I'm wondering about how the learning to read makes life long readers..

    I think there are good programs to teach reading but do they fit all students? Do life long readers come from people who know how to read well? Or are the readers just curious people? Do life long readers find reading stimulating for a number of reasons such as entertainment?

    What do you think?

READING

      At one time I did a lot of reading. I wasn't someone who read 50 books a year or  anything like that. I would read about 25 books a year.

     When I first retired a read many of the books I had been missing. I read Clan of the Cave Bears. I read most of Rutherfurd's books. I liked historical fiction but not mysteries.

    Then I found I was reading less and the last few years ...reading close to nothing.

     I had an idea what was causing the decline in reading.

     Blogging was taking my reading time.

    In the couple of months around my surgery I had time to think of  a few things. I was off blogging for about three weeks. I thought about closing the blog. I decided to keep blogging but at a lesser amount. I cut out the replies I made to comments. That gave me much more time, However, responding to comments was a very positive part of blogging. I miss it.

    But guess what? I found myself reading much more right away! Well, I wouldn't give up blogging because it's very interesting. I might even start back with replies to comments. I might find I have time.

    One thing I have to do is change a few things on the blog. I tried to add a reader and found out that I had forgotten how. 

MY BEST VALENTINES GIFT

       I think I've told this story before but I like it so I'll tell it again.

      My youngest brother was born on Feb. 14! I Remember when Mom brought him home and showed him to us. As 11, 14 and 15 year old farm boys we were surprisingly excited about this new brother. In no time we held him, fed him, changed diapers and rocked him to sleep. There was a competition as to who would look after him

     He was born in a small local hospital about 20 miles from home. Dave grew up with big brothers and cousins as there was no one his age in our community.

    Later on in life Dave became a nurse. You guessed it. He went back to nurse in the hospital he was born in. He looked up the records of his birth. There was nothing surprising. Everything was normal. Dave happened to be the head nurse in that little hospital. Dave spent the remainder of his career in health administration.

    I am sorry that I never got to spend much of my life with him. I left home at age 17 when Dave was only 2 and a half years old.

   So Happy birthday Dave.

   No pictures here as I'm still working on getting my photos on to a memory stick,

IT RAINED TODAY

        Rain for us in the winter is extremely rare. But today we had a very refreshing shower around noon. When I came outside it smelled fresh.

       Our winter temperatures are usually well below zero for highs and lows so rain isn't possible. We have had 10 days of well above normal winter temperatures so I guess it thought that it might as well rain.

     So for Feb.8 our average high is minus 3.9 C. Our average low is minus 16.2 C. Today our high was  plus 10  C and the low was minus 4 C.

    What  we usually say about pleasant weather is that we might as well enjoy it when it comes..

     Pleasant weather will be over tomorrow as it turns colder.

SAD LOSS

          Yesterday a former colleague was instantly killed in a car accident. What a shock!  

       Ted influenced students, fellow teachers, parents and the community at large.

          Ted  started his career at the school I was teaching in. Throughout my career I made it a habit to keenly watch new teachers who came out with the latest teaching techniques. I learned much from Ted.

         Ted was super organized so the kids had excellent material that was well presented. Parents were always well informed as Ted was an excellent communicator.

      Ted came from a very promising professional hockey career.  Ted decided to leave hockey and enter education. We were lucky for that choice. Through  out his career he found time to coach competitive hockey teams in the community.

     Ted was the best family man I ever met. He thought his wife and kids were the greatest and treated that way.

     Ted became a school administrator and put his incredible effort and ideas to that leadership.

     What a shock! Ted was just a few months away from retirement.

     I will miss him greatly along with all the other people he came in contact with.

DELETIONS HIT A SNAG

     I worked hard for a few days deleting photos. I got  into the swing of things. I saw a pattern forming and I knew which photos should be deleted  without having to think too much.

   I found that I took many snow photos. Well ,why wouldn't you take snow shots  when we have snow for a good part of the year? So close your eyes and delete the snow photos. Some of the snow photos were good.

    I also discovered that I had many scenic photos. Many of them were of the same place with little difference. I tried to take photos of flowers. Although I took many flower photos very few were worth a look. 

   So I  ended up keeping photos with family in them. 

   I also  have to admit that I got sidelined. I started looking at photos. Photos of my kids when they were cute little guys. They are still cute with some gray hair.  Well looking at photos sidelined my project for one day. today I was terribly busy and didn't get at my project.

    So I hope that I get some deletions done tomorrow.

 

DIGITAL PHOTO BLUES

       Be it resolved that they keep digital cameras away from the idiots. May I make my case.

       My daughter gave me a small digital camera a long time ago. Then I bought a much nicer digital camera. 

      So I was really  ready to take pictures. I took many digital photos of things I really liked . I took several photos of the same thing. I went to the same places may times and got more photos. I have many  photos of seasons. 

      Now one thing I didn't know about was a file system. A filing system is still beyond me. So my phots are scattered all over the place, I edited photos but did not delete the originals. Sometimes I edited three or four times. I labeled very few photos. I have learned how to label photos but don't do it because it's not in my routine. 

   What brings about all this self criticism? Since  I bought a laptop I now have to import my photos from the old PC.  Okay, that should be simple and it is. However, I had about 7000 photos. These photos are largely unorganized. Some of these photos I do not recognize. What was the location? Why was a photo taken?

    So now this old boy is going through and deleting photos he doesn't want before importing them to the laptop. So far  I've  deleted about 1500 photos.

    Poor me!

COMPUTER

     As you may know I've had a few challenges with windows 11 and blogger. I will admit that some of the problems were my fault. My lack if knowledge and experience causes some of my problems.

    So the  crucial time happened when the computer froze. Well , it didn't really freeze. McAfee came on and gave me two choices. I didn't know if this was scam or not. I could not move until I made a choice. One was uninstall and the other was renew.

    So this called my friend Todd's expertise. Todd came and explained the McAfee thing. I could click uninstall as windows has it's own protection.

    Then I was behind in my updates. Windows 10 down loaded updates automatically. Windows 11 you have to manage the updates. Todd also took off some unnecessary do dads and added others that were necessary

    Then what I had to sort out if my problems were windows 11 and what to do about them.

    I also got my scanner working.

   So Todd was like a technician who repairs your computer except you don't have to go to a shop.

    As a result of these situations writing a post and reading and responding to posts was very difficult.

COLLEAGUES

   As I start many posts, I was a teacher. I've been retired for 28 years. These two colleagues have been retired less than five years.

       I always watched the new  teachers when they came on the staff.  

       So on Wednesday, I had a long lunch with some two former colleagues. I've been retired for 28 years. These two guys taught with me in my last five years. They are both retired so it's interesting to find out what's going on in their retirement. I watched them carefully when they came on staff. I wasn't watching to see if they could teach. I  knew that  they came out and had the latest educational methods. I did this so that I could keep up with the times.

      Mike was a social studies teacher. I never taught social studies. But Mike was an excellent out door Ed. teacher and I got to teach some outdoor Ed. with him. Outdoor ed is a little different as you teach the theory and then take the kids on a field trip to see if they have prepared properly. Some kids were pretty cold as they hadn't prepared properly. We usually had some extra blankets. Then on weekends we sometimes went out back packing trips to check out new areas for field trips.

    Daryl taught science. I had taught science previously so  It was interesting to watch new methods. Daryl also liked back packing so he came along with us.

   So it was a good afternoon talking about old times.

MAYHEM IN COMPUTER LAND

       Four or five days ago my computer started acting up. It seemed like the size was larger and some parts of the blog did not fit on the screen. Well, I blundered through a post. I  did my editing three lines at a time. I tried to adjust things but nothing worked.

     The next morning I tried to read some blogs and make comments. It could be done but I had to use very different steps. I gave up.

     Then I found out that things had really fallen apart. I couldn't get on to many of my sites like email, Facebook and MSN. I worried about it all day. I was going to phone my friend but  decided to check some things on line. Since online information had closed I began to  see if I could find a solution. After a few hours I had got into all sites by using many strange moves. For emails, I went down about 20 pages before I found a sign in choice. 

    After thinking all this through I began to sense that all the problems were because of changes made by windows 11. And I must admit that some of it was from my lack of knowledge and experience. 

   I asked me friends today and they noticed some different things.

   However, when it comes to an elderly senior who's not that competent on computers it can be very confusing. They don't give you a warning that something is going to happen. Maybe they think that everybody should be smart enough to catch in.

     How about you? Did you notice anu changes?

SOME THINGS STICK TO YOU ALL YOUR LIFE

     Many stories were told  about my past with their Dad. We were less than a year apart so we were, to say the least, a little active. Because  of some over exuberance, we got into trouble once in a while.

     Our nearest neighbor w   My brother and his three kids came to visit me a couple of months ago. His kids are in their 50's and 60's. But  since I don't get out to see them anymore it was pleasant to see them. We had a great time  reminiscing and catching up with todays news.

     Every once in a while the kids would come up with a question about my past. How did they know about this. Well, you can guess that their Dad told them.as  a very elderly man who was on our yard most days. He   bought eggs from my Mom.

     So my brother and I were about 8 or 9. We quite often made sling shots. The sling shots didn't last very long as they had been made by little boys. However, at times they did have some power.

    One day the elderly neighbor came on the yard. The spare tire on his car was mounted on the back of the car. It looked like a great target. I envisioned my self hitting the bull's eye in the center of the wheel. Would all the kids think I was great.

    Well, was I not only far off the target. I hit the back window and broke it. Silence took over very rapidly. The gentle man was  not happy. He went  in the house to talk to Mom. There  were more kids on the yard besides my family. Things quieted down very quickly and my rash action brought a  chill over the group.

    So  this is what one of my brother's kids brought up. So some things stick with you your whole life. I imagine they will be talking about this long after I am gone.

NIGHT VISITORS

     I am not a great sleeper. It usually takes a while to go to sleep. I wake up three to five times a night. It helps if I get up and stretch. The one thing I have going for me is that my hearing aides are out for the night so I can't blame noise for causing sleeplessness.

    So because of limited hearing some things get by my. How do I know? I find the evidence (tracks ) the next day. Deer pass through  my front yard regularly.

   There are  two small entrances (one to two meters wide ) to my back yard. Animals are fairly cautious when they go through narrow entrances.

   Well, a few weeks ago when I went out to my back yard I noticed deer tracks. Deer very seldom enter my back yard for the above reasons. But they do travel at night and with their color are very hard to see.

   But what I noticed most about these tracks is that they were right below my bedroom window. So they passed very close to me and I didn't know it. I wonder if the deer knew I was that close?

A COLD DECEMBER

        The month of December here was just one long cold spell. It can happen that we get a month to 6 weeks of very cold weather with no breaks. Our highs were minus 20 to 22 C. Lows were towards minus 30C. Usually you don't get much snow during a cold spell but we had snow. This was during my recovery from surgery so the poor guy who shovelled my snow had lots of work. He volunteered to shovel my snow and would not take any money for it.

     In 1969 we had a major cold spell. In the school I taught in ,there were  quite a few rookies and they had old cars. As the cold spell continued, one by one the old cars wouldn't start. I picked up  a car load of people and then my car wouldn't start and we were all walking. 

   So just after Christmas it was very frosty but not hoar frost. So I didn't get the white on these spruce trees but I'll show them to you any way.

    So early January things have warmed up. For the last two days our high has been plus 3C. Today, I did a 2 km walk. 

A JACK RABBIT WHO THINKS HE'S A HORSE

         I tell many jack rabbit stories. Jack rabbits inhabit my back yard for months at a time. So I see a lot of their behavior.

         The jack rabbit is a night critter. In the day time they find a quiet safe place. The safe place is where nothing can approach them from the back. In other words they put their butt against a fence. They can see if a predator is coming from the side or front. The spend the daytime quietly sleeping , grooming, stretching, nibbling on near by plants or wander around the yard a bit. Grooming takes most of the time.

         I've had two jack rabbits inhabit my yard separately from August to December. They are there 90% of the time. They do not share. I happened  to look  out my window in mid Oct. and two animals were having a little tiff. One animal left and it was the one who'd been there a couple of months. The second one stayed until about 2 weeks ago.

     So the horse antics. I happened to see the animal arrive one morning. First , it would run quickly for 4 or five meters and then put on the brakes and sit for about 5 seconds. Then it would run back and twist and curve. Then it would jump up and down on the spot.. What amazed me most is when it rolled on it's back with feet flailing in the air. Horses do this but I've never seen any other animal roll onto it's back. 

    So I was privileged to see some interesting behavior.

MY SHED RISES AGAIN

     Well, I looked at my old garden shed lying on the ground and wondered what to do about it. I honestly didn't think it could be rescued. I thought about it and then said maybe I should ask my neighbor T what might be done. I just wanted to upright it to put things back in and keep them out of the snow. In the spring I would build a new shed.

     When I got back T was looking over the wreckage and said, "I think we can fix this."

      I said ,"You can't lift this by yourself."

     "Sure ," he said ."My wife and I can lift it. She lifts weights."

     So he went to his shop and got a few tools and supplies. He stabilized the shed. He rigged up a safety device that their daughter controlled and T and D grabbed the shed and up it went. 

     Well I was pleased the shed was  standing.

      But T didn't stop there. He moved it back into the original slots. He put in a few more screws and added  some braces to strengthen the shed. D looked at it and said' "The doors even fit."

     So I was more than pleased as my garden shed was in better condition than before. Now I won't have to  build a shed in the spring.

      These neighbors have been unbelievable helpful. I wondered why? I finally thought that they are both paramedics. Their whole world is helping people. So I am most thankful to benefit from their kindness.

I TRIED TO DRIVE OVER MY GARDEN SHED

       Now I've been driving since I was eight years old. Yes, you could drive in the way back years on the farm. So I've had a few scrapes over the 78 years I've been driving. The other day I had an incident that was more frightening than serious. 

      My place has a driveway leading to the side of the house where there is a carport. At the end of the carport is a garden shed that nicely puts a division between the back yard and drive way, So you go up the drive way and stop before you hit the garden tool shed.

      Well, the other day something happened and I didn't quite get stopped  before I hit the shed. I knocked the shed over with a thunderous crash. Days later neighbors told me that they heard a loud bang but didn't know what it was.

     So this shook me up quite a bit. I have  been driving up to the wall for this shed for 56 years. It was easy to stop.

     After I calmed down I tried to find out what caused my error. I discovered that I had my foot at an angle on the brake and accelerator. I was putting my foot on both of them at the same time. The engine was roaring but not going very far as the brake kept the car in almost one place. 

    No damage to the car but the rotten old shed was a mess.

ELEVATOR PANIC

       Several weeks ago the Micro manager was scheduled for an ultrasound at the local lab. Neither one of us were in great condition. I had just had my surgery. Her mobility is not good. It was icy.

      I tried to find a parking spot that was close to the entrance and the least ice. 

    When her appointment ended she was in another part of the building.  We walked back but were  on the wrong floor. Oh there's an elevator! Great!

    What the Micro Manager wants to do at times does not fit with the plan. So instead of going out the door to where the car was closest, she got it in her head to go down a floor and out another door. For some reason she thought this was the best route.

    Well we got on the elevator and the fun started. It must have been an elevator from pioneer days. The controls were two egg size buttons. One for up and one for down. So right away we started experimenting. There was nothing to tell you where you were. We went up and down for a while. Then the debate started and it got louder and louder. Finally, we got to the floor we were looking for but couldn't see how to open the door. Staff were outside yelling and trying to tell us what to do. Finally, we  clicked on something and the door opened. When we stepped out, I said, "I'm not with her!"

    Staff could hardly stop themselves from laughing but kept it together. I'm sure they had a big laugh when we left.. 

    I've never been on an elevator with so  few instructions. I'm sure many people have the same experience we did.

SUN CHANGES

     I'm a  bit of a nerd when it comes to sunrise and sunset at this time of year. I like to know what's happening. What are the changes?

     Well since the winter solstice not much has happened but we're slowly starting to move in the right direction.

     Sunrise on the winter solstice was 8:42 and Jan 1 is 8:44 . So two minutes of daylight have been gained. Sunset  on the winter solstice was 4:24 and on Jan. 1 was 4:33 so the daylight has increased by nine minutes .

     Okay I  promise not to make such a nerdy post until March.