Guess What? New Babies at my Place.

      Okay! I'll end the suspense. Four little Jack rabbits were born in my back yard yesterday!


      I went out to my back yard yesterday about 9:30 AM. He/she was back by my utility trailer and looked as if he/she didn't want to move very badly.I shooed him/her whatever out of the yard because I thought it might be "son of a bitch" . Now "son of a bitch" is not welcome in my yard because he/she leveled a row of lettuce in my garden. A couple of other jack rabbits crossed my front yard in the morning and afternoon.


     About 4:30 PM I noticed a rabbit under my utility trailer and I thought, "Oh ya. I know what's going to happen." She was making a scrape which is a very shallow smoothed out piece of ground. I noticed a lot of antsy movements. Usually jack rabbits will doze in a safe place and are very still. I didn't want to disturb her so I stayed in my house. I tried to get a look with my field glasses but it was too dark under the trailer. 


     A few minutes later I noticed Ma rabbit about to enter my garden so I thought nothing doing. I've lost enough. I went out and she was adamant that she owned the garden and wasn't leaving. I only wanted her out of the garden and had no intention to chase her out of the yard but out of the yard she went. So this was my chance to take a peak. There they were. Four new born little bunnies who just laid there and did not move. I took some pictures but since I have a few things to learn about taking a picture of stuff that's in the dark when the camera is in the light the results are not good.

About 30 minutes after birth

And they didn't move from one picture to the next.

 A poorer view from the other side.

    I wanted to get a shot of them when they came out from under the trailer but because I'm not the most patient photographer I didn't get them. I checked at 8:30 PM and there were only two little guys under the trailer. This morning there were no babies under the trailer.


   So although I didn't  have the babies very long it was quite an exciting few hours.

The Last Laugh

     My whole teaching career was with Middle School kids. They have their own perception of life and it doesn't  go much further than the next hour. If you get to understand a little bit about Middle School kids you can see their sense of humor and play along with them and have some fun.

     In my late twenties to early thirties I developed some pattern baldness. There was a noticeable part on the back of my head where the hair was thinning. Well, did the boys have fun. Almost every day somebody would say, "Mr. Kline , you're going bald!" Now this was a line that one could play with. There are many replies to this one. Also in my head was the idea that I was going bald. But many times I teased these little guys that some day they would be balder than I am. They could never get this one. Some of these guys gave me more static than others. And some didn't mention the topic.


    Now I still live in the community that I taught in. I taught in the same school for 28 years. By the end of my career about 20 % of my students were children of former students. I still live in the same district so from time to time I see former students like my optometrist.  Many of my former students are active in the community.


     Now what really got me writing this post was I saw a picture of John who was teaching kids to fish. I haven't seen John since he left gr. nine but I see his folks once in a while.Well guess what?  John is very hair challenged! 


    One kid Dan, pestered me more than any other. Dan was completely shiny before he turned thirty. 


    I don't know what the percentage is for pattern baldness but what ever it is my former students are in it. 


    As for me , I've stayed the same with the thin hair patch...no more no less. I remember all my great uncles and Grandpa had exactly the same place where their hair was thin. 


   So guys I guess I get the last laugh!

An Odd House Keeping Routine

      Last week my manager asked me to do a number of house keeping tasks. Usually I do them as part of my share of keeping body and soul together. I have been known to whine from time to time about having to do some of these jobs.


     Last week though, I go to do some heavy duty housework. I was asked to wash a bed room floor, vacuum a bedroom, vacuum living room furniture, vacuum the TV room and vacuum the games room. Wow! Not much was left.

29 cushions to clean off!

    Now what caused me to do all these jobs was a polite request from the manager. What was the manager thinking? Well, the manager was going in for some medical tests this week. She had been increasingly worried about these tests. She knew the preparation was not fun. She became more and more uncomfortable about the tests themselves. She was worried what they would find. She even had her self convinced that she might not survive the test   The tests went by with flying colors. The report was that they were only 1/8 as difficult as she had thought. Nothing wrong was found.


    So going away to the hospital and worrying about not surviving brought on the odd house keeping habit. I've heard of it before. I've heard people try to explain it or give an excuse for it. I don't think any answer for its occurrence is near complete or accurate. For an odd reason some house keepers get the urge to have their house spotlessly clean before they go away.



     I would never be one of those house keepers!

A Break in the Heat.

       Saturday we had a very welcome change in our weather when it slowly clouded over in the evening. There was just a little bit of rain. Sunday Afternoon we had a little more rain and Sunday night there was a lot of rain. We had a high of 24 C (78 F) on Sat. 16 C (62 F) Sun and 19C(69 F) on Mon. Tomorrow we are back to higher temperatures but nothing in the hot range.


      The rain was welcome Our grass was starting to show some heat stress. We weren't dry, just hot.. We probably had 250-350mm(1-1 1/2 in) of rain.

     A blogger I follow in Montana received some precipitation but they had been very dry.  Another blogger I follow in southern Alberta also cooled off and got wet. The weather radar showed a large system centered around Lethbridge , Alberta. It extended to both borders  of Alberta and down into Montana.


     So we have a welcome break in the hot weather.


     Today at 1  PM we had a thick layer of cloud  that gave complete overcast.

View to the west

View to the east

View to the south

Nick Names: Love'm or Hate'm

     Now I haven't taken a survey but I would guess that the percentage of people who have or have had nick names is pretty high. There are family , school , friends and sport nick names to name a few. My last post was on given names and then I got thinking about nick names.


     Now all of my family had family nick names. I was the first born and I was always called Grandpa or Grandfather by my Dad. I don't remember anybody else in the family calling me grandfather. My next brother was called Merce because some little guy, namely me, couldn't say Myrven. Other people in the community used this name. My sister was called Deen or Deeny because two little boys couldn't say Doreen. The fourth sibling was called Ditter because two little guys and one sister couldn't say Victor . My youngest brother was so much younger that he didn't suffer receiving a nick name caused by siblings who had problems pronouncing a name. Our mother did call him Dadid as his name was David. The Dadid probably comes from him not being able to say his own name when he was little.


    I have a neighbor who is in his mid fifties. His nick name is Dirt. He's a twin and guess what? His twin brother couldn't quite say Stewart. The closest he  came to it was Dirt.


    High schools are great places for nick names. My high school nick name was Pop, Pa or Paa. See any connections to another nick name I had? I don't know where this nick name came from and I was always too afraid to ask. The skinniest guy in the class was Tub. The guy with an early peach fuzz mustache was called Shnir ( don't think this is spelled right) and it means mustache in German. Other nick names were from name alterations. Bergy came from Bergen. Remp came from Rempel.


    As an adult I have had several names. The Eskimos called me Ehunga which means crooked mouth. It refers to my physical facial feature. When they got mad at me I was Ehungnaq. They would never tell me what this meant.


     As a teacher , I know that most classes have a nick name for you and it's usually not discovered by the teacher. One I did discover was Slime. Did I say anything? No. I did not let on that I knew their secret? No.


     As teachers we quite often played against school teams. I am not any kind of athlete, but I got the name killer in volley ball and it stuck for quite a few years. The sports world is full of nick names.


    Nick names probably come on a very incidental basis from very small happenings. But love or hate your nick name you're stuck with it. Somebody who tries to fight a nick name they don't like is asking for trouble.


  Fortunately most people have interesting  and descriptive nick names that end up being a lot of fun.

Naming Patterns

    A few posts ago Far Side of Fifty made some comments on how her grandchildren and some relatives were named. It was interesting post and got me thinking about patterns used by different cultural, ethnic and religious groups for naming children.


     Far Side got me thinking about naming children in my family. My ancestors came to Canada in the late 1800' to early 1900's. They came from Volhynia which is in the Ukraine. They had gone to the Ukraine in the late 1700's. So they were cut off from the main German culture. They remained as Germans from the late 1700's.


    So the German naming pattern usually went this way. The first grand son or son was given the paternal grandfather's name as his second name. The second grandson or son was given the maternal grandfather's name. They also had a pattern of giving a child a first name after a saint. The second name would be the name used every day. As with most groups these were general guidelines and variations occurred.  The same pattern applied to female names.


    Now it only took a few generations for these patterns to be forgotten or changed. Many did not learn the German language. Many Anglicized their names. My name was originally spelled Klein. My Dad changed it to Kline.  Some of his family were not very pleased with him.


    The Jewish religion has many fairly strict guidelines for naming children. My friend told me that the Rabbi had to approve the names he wanted to give his children.


    The English had a custom where a child was quite often given a surname for a second name. As a result you see many English names which include  surnames. My brother in law was named John after his father and Elliott after his mother's family. To my way of thinking many of these names had a rather elegant ring to them.


    Icelanders use a patronymic system of naming children. Jon Larson's son becomes Peter Jonsson. His daughter Anna becomes Anna Jonsson. Again they liked to use Saint's names.


    Naming by our aboriginals was interesting to say the least. Children were given names that had significance in a spiritual, animal or place origin. Names were changed when circumstances called for it.  Someone could be renamed if there had been a misfortune and they wanted to change their status to become more fortunate.


    I did not use any pattern in naming my children. I picked up my adopted son a couple of days before Christmas. It was a very unexpected placement and we hadn't thought of any name. Since we were going to my parent's place for Christmas, my wife said, "We need a name before we go for Christmas. I don't want your Dad to name him."


     So I've had a brief look at naming patterns and you don't have to look very far to learn a great deal. 

Red Hot Heat Wave

     For the last four days we have been experiencing a heat wave in Central Alberta. For four days we have had temperatures in the 30 - 32 C (88 - 92 F) range. That is hot for this area. Now I know that some people would scoff at me saying this is hot and a heat wave! I've been watching heat waves in other parts of the continent and they are brutal. You have my sympathy. My daughter keeps me informed about the heat in Chicago.  

      Our usual summer day time highs are about 20 C ( 70 F). A few days each summer we may have a 26 C ( 80 F) temperature and once every five years or so we get what we're getting now. 


     Now very few houses here have air conditioning. It just wouldn't make economic sense to install air conditioning. Our houses have a high insulation value to keep heat in in the winter. Most commercial buildings will have air conditioning.


    However, life goes on here heat wave or no heat wave. Outdoor workers continue the regular routine. Plants, crops and wildlife suffer from the  heat . Farm crops suffer some damage as yields could be less. I remember when I lived on my Dad's farm and we had a heat wave how it would bother my Dad. He knew that he was losing income as long as the heat wave continued. 


    So I have fans running in my house hoping to keep the temperature down. I stay in my house from noon to 3:00 pm to try to stay out of the heat. 


    I hope that all heat waves end now and that we go back to normal temperatures. Then I can stop being grouchy.