You've seen this figure many times. I've written of how it came to be. The birch tree died and we left a 6 ft stump to turn into "something". We wanted to carve it but soon realized carving was way beyond our ability. We settled on a little outline of a house. Not my idea though!
We've had fun with this creation as people have commented and lots of little kids have to look at it each time they go by.
We were sitting in the backyard yesterday afternoon when we noticed someone at the front door. We called the guy to the back. He had stopped to tell us to take the bark off the stump so the wood wouldn't rot.
He had just finished this chainsaw carving at my neighbors.
We visited with this guy and it was a learning experience. He had taken a good look at our creation and saw things that other people never see. There are silhouettes of faces on either side of the stump!
What he did for my neighbor has lots of detail. The ideas were my neighbors and the guy just followed instructions.
I can imagine many little kids will look at this carving.
Now here's a topic that could generate a few discussions. some discussions may even be a bit heated. And then other people may say, "Who cares?" . Now the other day I heard a discussion of the plural on a radio show.
Is the plural of octopus, octopi or octopuses? We see it written both ways and are not sure what is actually correct. It's one of those plurals that I fumble with and take the simplest one octopi.
Well apparently both are correct according to your dictionary, but one is more correct than the other. Since octopus is of Greek origin the plural should be es. The pi ending is a Latin form and I can't find why it's used.
So for a word that's not that common it creates an issue over it's plural.
Have you heard anything about Fort McMurray lately?
Not likely!
The media is around when they can get sensational pictures of billowing clouds of smoke and flames licking through the trees. Well, there are no big fires so the media has gone on in search of some other sensational story.
But Fort McMurray is still there and it's still a serious story.
A few days ago the wind changed and the temperature dropped so the fire died down and travelled away for mcMurray. There are still hot spots which can become very dangerous again.
So people are going back home? Not so fast. There's lots that has to be done before 90000 people go tearing home. Infrastructure has to be checked to see if it's working. So checks on electricity, gas, water , sewer and other services have to be made. Basic stock in all businesses has to be filled. There's no gas in the whole city.A grand plan has to be made before people can return home. It's not going to happen anytime soon.
Today adults were issued debit cards for $1250 each and $500 for each child. The Red Cross is issuing $500 per person. The Red Cross has raised $67 000 000. After seven days some basics have to be purchased like clothing.
People will be going back but not right away. Their kids are being enrolled in schools. 11000 kids were enrolled in Ft McMurray schools when they evacuated. Many of those kids will remain in their new schools until the end of the year.
Now 85 - 90% of the city was saved. Over 2000 buildings were destroyed. That puts many people in a difficult situation. Those who lost houses will have some difficult decisions to make. I think in the short term temporary housing will be brought in and construction camps will be used.
So there's no hot news but the real tough story is still there and will go on for years. Estimates of three years for rebuilding are being suggested. Estimated damage is nine billion dollars.
This is a photo from CBC
By now most people would be aware of the dangerous destructive forest fire at Ft McMurray. Wildfires were in the area but on the weekend one fire suddenly went very wild. Windy hot conditions allowed the fire to go toward the city of Ft. McMurray. By Monday a mandatory evacuation of the city was ordered. The evacuation order was almost too late.
Ft McMurray has a population of about 90000. There is about 1 1/4 roads out of McMurray. There's one divided double lane highway and a much smaller two lane highway . Since almost all people ended up on the highway , a massive traffic jam took place. Adding to the misery, there was no gas left in McMurray so people started with less than a tank of gas. It's a long way to another town with gas so people were stalled on the road with no gas.
About 15000 people went to the north to empty work camps. 65000 went south toward Edmonton.
Now it's hard to imagine that many people on one road trying to get away. Once they were a few Km out of town they were out of fire danger but there was no place to stay.
Ft. Mcmurray is 587 km northeast of where I live.
You probably connect Ft McMurray to the massive tar sands oil development. The large mines and plants are in no danger as the mines have cleared all the forest. The city is located in a beautiful boreal forest area.
So an emergency situation has made it very worrisome for us even if we are far from danger. My neighbor works at McMurray. He came home safely but it was a difficult trip.
Now about 50 years ago there was no road to McMurray. It was a small isolated village. There was a railway to McMurray.
At this time the fire is still out of control.
Yesterday was the eboy's lunch. eboys are a small group of teachers who taught together at a school in the 70's. We were mostly in our 20's and left our rooky teaching years and become effective teachers. During that time we became good friends. We were in the same boat. We had little kids, were broke most of the time and loved to socialize together. We had a couple of older guys who were great mentors and also stayed friends with us.
We missed this lunch last year and the year before I could not attend. We all show a little aging since the last lunch. Our mentor was not able to attend due to his health condition. He's just not able to cope being out anymore.
So yesterday there was talk of colleagues we've lost recently. Then talk of colleagues and sharing news. And retired teachers always have to talk about former students.
Lunch was great but the visit was awesome. We had an awesome relationship when we were young and it's still the same although we don't see each other very much. Man, did we have energy in those days.
The photos are from 2013 so yes we've aged over the 3 years. Don't look for me. I was the photographer.
This morning when I was publishing comments I hit delete by mistake. I'm sorry that I deleted nine comments.
So if you don't see your comment you will know what happened to it.
