SATURDAY BIRDING

     We had another good morning of birding. We went to Hazlett Lake which is a small local lake on the edge of town. It's private property but one of the favorite places the group likes to go.

     Today there were very few birds on the water. It's still a little early for the main migration of waterfowl. We saw 18 species today and that's without a lot of water birds.

    The family that owns the property has had their own golf course for many years. No one else plays this course.

    Estelle is making her way from the shore. the riparian area has been taken over by canary reed grass. Most native riparian plants have disappeared.

      Bertha makes her way from the shore.

     I found a tree that had recently been damaged by lightening. 

    A field of canola that has been swathed and ready for harvest.

     The original family home.

EDUCATION OF A PRAIRIE BOY PART III

     So at about 6 years of age I  began the institutional part of my education. Bur don't forget that alongside the institution life experience and learning went on.

      The system I was going into was very different from other systems because of the territory. The Canadian prairies are huge and were sparsely populated. The Canadian prairies were settled around 1900. There were few railroads . Travel and freighting were done with horses. So schools had to be planned so that kids didn't have to travel too far to get to school. The plan was that kids shouldn't have to travel more than 4 miles. I was lucky. I only had to travel one mile and most of the time I walked.

     The school building was built in 1908 and was called Hiawatha. Ever hear the name Hiawatha used somewhere?. It was not insulated and was built with green lumber. As a result the lumber shrunk and left spaces the wind could blow through. The prairies are a very windy place. I remember the wind moaning around and through some of the building. The building also moved slightly in the wind so you always heard the creaking of nails and wood. So some days you listened to the wind song all day. 

     For some reason or other the little kids who were going to start school in September attended school in May and June.  It was a bit like a kindergarten. 

    The good citizens of the prairies were always very proud of their schools. The schools acted as a community center. Many times churches used the schools. 

   So before I actually get to school let me tell you that the education they provided was somewhat limited. Supplies of materials like books were limited. There was an initial purchase of books and not much after that. Teachers had very limited training. Some had not completed high school. Sometimes the school was closed for a while because they could not hire a teacher. Some teachers were very good and some very inept.

   This is the only photo I have of the building. I'm the little fellow in the middle row first left.

BIRDING AT GAETZ LAKE

      Saturday six of us visited gaetz lake for a couple of hours of biding.We saw 25 species of birds.

     Gaetz lake is a 230 acre property right in the city now. Half of the property is old growth forest.

     There are two small ox bow lakes. A long time ago the river bed was where to two lakes are.  They have made an excellent wetlands. 

MY EXPLANATION.

    My last two posts were a disaster.  As hard as I tried I couldn't get the font or size of print I wanted. I couldn't indent paragraphs. I thought I couldn't get photos but then I found them.

     I knew something was wrong but not what or how to correct it. There were red , green and blue words. there was code between the words.  I tried everything and searched as hard as I could search. 

    So go to young people for a solution. I checked with my kids. They couldn't come up with anything. They're not kids any more...48 and 50. They're too old to help me.

    My daughter did give me one hint that it sounded like html. 

    So I looked to see where I may have accidentally clicked on a html icon. I accidentally found it. It's in the upper left hand corner of the blog. There is compose and html. I had accidentally clicked on html. So I clicked on compose and I was back in business.

    I did much cussing and search to find a solution. I won't forget that for a while. 

   So my apologies for some very poor posts.

     So there it is. The pencil stands for compose and the triangle is html

THE EDUCATION OF A PRAIRIE BOY PART II

     When I did my first prairie boy post I thought I had said everything. When I contemplated the post and looked at your comments I knew I had something else to say. 

     There was more education before starting my education in an institution. 

     In my preschool years I had contact with grandparents. Yes, all of you grandparents know how much you influence and teach your grandkids. My paternal grandparents lived about 8 or nine miles from us. We visited then about 6 or 7 times a year. 8 or 9 miles in the early 40's was a long trip for us. With horses we could not make the trip both ways. Okay, my paternal grandparents were German immigrants who came from Russia. Apparently they spoke very little English but that didn't matter to a little boy who didn't speak German. We chattered to each other all day to the extent that I had to be told later in life that they didn't talk English. Grandma was a great story teller and told stories of wolves and foxes that chased people. The people always got away in her stories. So we were exposed to a different culture. I remember staying with Grandma a few times. The food was different. They were independent for almost everything. They produced most of their own food and it was different. They received support from the Mennonites in Manitoba , Canada when they first came here.   

     My maternal grandparents were English and came here for the same reason as the paternal grandparent...economics. The maternal grandparent could not make a living in England. My grandfather was a butcher and went to farms when they wanted something butchered. My maternal grandparents lived about 500 miles away so we saw them only once a year. I remember visiting them twice. They lived in a town of 10000 and I thought it as a city. This was a huge place with all kinds of shops. These grandparents were supported by the church for a few years until they became established. So my Grandparents were like most grandparents and taught their grandkids about a different way of life. They also urged us to practice good behavior. 

      Children learn from other children. We had children living close to our farm so played with other kids all the time. Kids have to play with others to learn how to get along. Sometimes kids have a very effective way of getting their point across...they sometimes use hitting. 

     Many of the things you learn as a preschooler pop up later in your life to add meaning to what is going on. The stories my parents and grandparents told made things have more sense as life went on. I was my grandparents first grandson so there was a special photo . My paternal grandparents in front of their retirement home. My maternal grandparents are on the left. I'm on the far right .
  

BIRDING ON A WINDY MORNING

I've started birding with my regular Saturday morning again. It feelds great to get out. This saturday we went to a desserted farm that has been taken over by the city. A project on urbn agriculture is taking place there. A creek runs through the propety butthere was a cattle operation on the location and much of the land damaged. they are trying to restore the creek by plabnting trees . However, I birded arounf the farm stead. The area is being used to let people rent plots to greo gardens. There is a 600 meter lane to enter the property. One side of the lane has natural habitat and the other a thick old shelterbelt. I thought I would see many birds in the lane but I was skunked . A pair of red tail hawks and Swainson's hawks kept screaming at me so no birds broke their cover.

THE EDUCATION OF A PRAIRIE BOY

     I was a small child in the 40's and grew up in the 50's. These are dates you have to remember. I think only one of my follower was running around before me.

     I grew upon the prairies of Western Canada. In one of my last posts I told you that I was born at Esk, Saskatchewan Canada. Because of the wide open spaces the main part of the education system was the one room country school. School areas were set up so that kids rarely had more than 3 miles to go to school. Transportation was mostly walking and sometimes by horse. I was lucky. Our farm was one mile away from the school.

     However , education does not only consist of formal classroom activities. We learn many things when we are away from school. A young prairie boy could find many things around him that taught him things.

    So here goes for my education before entering  a formal education system. I was fortunate enough to have a younger brother who was less than  year younger than me. That seemed to accelerate the learning. 

    We lived on a small farm that was still suffering from the effects of the depression. As a result there was quite a selection of very old machinery. So as little boys we clambered over every piece of machinery in the yard. We tried every lever on every machine. We climbed everything we could climb trees, haystacks, straw stacks wood piles, barn structure and tried to climb many of the old wooden telephone poles.

    One activity was to whack everything we could with a hammer and see what sound it made and how strong it was. One time we whacked a spark plug on an engine and were greatly dismayed when the spark plug broke. We knew we were in trouble but we didn't tell Dad preferring to wait as long as possible for the punishment. 

     There were many other children in the other area to play with. Kids learn from each other.

     Our house was small so most of the time were played outside. We wandered through fields and brushy and treed areas. I remember seeing a yellow warbler for the first time as I was crawling on my hands and knees through the willows. There were many birds in the yard and nearby area,

     There were many animals on the farm. 

    Mom read  to us almost every night. The four of us would get in bed to listen to Mom read. I remember the Thornton Burgess books. She read them over and over. There was also a religious set of books called the Sugar Creek Gang. 

     Each day started with reading a portion from the bible and prayer. In the winter this ritual was added after supper (the evening meal).

     And then of course there was Sunday school. We listened to bible stories and memorized numerous bible passages. I memorized the 23rd Psalm and probably 23 more Psalms. I don't think I memorized the one with 119 verses. Now in Sunday School we were told that some activities were sin. Since something was sin like smoking we had to try it as soon as possible.

     As a  preschool kid there were many useful and interesting things to learn . Next I'll try school bust I will continue to learn things out of the school setting.