IT PAYS TO ASK.

       Three posts ago I wrote about not knowing dates of death for my Mom and sister. I had tried searching but didn't have any luck. 

       Connie from Far Side of  Fifty found my Mom's date of death. I should have been able to find it. 

      My sister's date of death was a bigger challenge. My best searchers didn't find anything. My son-in-law is an expert on genealogy and he couldn't find anything. So I checked with Vital statistics. They wanted $70.00 to find it. When I read that I very quickly decided to look a little harder. My brother was looking through some papers and there it was . He was surprised as he didn't know he had the date. He had a clipping from the paper that was an announcement of memoriam. 

     My niece who has looked for this information sent it to me. She also got another niece in on the search. It's interesting as these two were born 70's and 90's and would very likely not ever heard of Doreen. 

      So I didn't have to look very hard to find the date in the end. People are a great help.

      I guess it's my age that got me thinking about dates of death.

     Do other people start looking for this information at an earlier time?

     Now I wonder what else I will need to know ?

WHITE TAILED JACK RABBIT

       When I looked in my back yard about 7:AM this morning a jack rabbit was comfortably "sitting " in the snow with new snow covering it's coat. It sat there all day and left around 6:00 PM. They are more active at night. 

       Now for those who don't know about jack rabbits, they are a hare that lives about 3 - 8 years in the wild, weighs from 6- 10 lb. (2.5-4 kg) 22in. -26 in (56-65cm) long and can hit speeds of 55 km/h. They are  quite the sight when they put things in high gear. They soon disappear over the hill. They inhabit the central part of the north American plains. 

     They also change color with the  seasonal changes so they are white in the winter and brown in the summer.

      They are common here and get along  in the city very well where there's lots of food they like. So they cross my yard often and stop to eat and many times spend the day in the shelter of my yard. There has been two litters of young born in my backyard and of course, I blogged about them. 

      The reason this animal caught my eye this morning is that it is changing color. Usually the color change is much later starting about mid March.

    I took this photo shortly after 7:00 Am as I thought he/she might leave

    You can see how they make a scrape in the snow and bed down for the day. They like to get their butt up against a wall of some kind where they cannot be attacked from behind. 

       The ears remain dark all year.

DISCARDING

      I am up to my usual spring jobs...spring cleaning. In my other post I explained that this year's spring cleaning means getting rid of things...downsizing.

     Today it was books. Discarding books. We don't have very many books but discarding some will lighten the load if  I have to move sooner than I think. 

    I was a teacher and when the library was discarding books I was there to pick out what I wanted. Then there were all kinds of books that were gifts. Somebody (Mom) in their wisdom kept most of the books I was given as a child.  My youngest Aunt gave us books for birthdays and Christmas. One  series she gave us was called the Sugar Creek gang. It must be a huge series because a brother and sister also got books. We were too young to read some of these books so Mom would read them to us. Reading time was just before going to bed. So the four of us would crawl  into bed with Mom and she would read. Mom was an excellent oral reader and could put some emotion into the story with her voice. 

     Some of the books are very hard to part with because of their sentimental value. 

    I had many good outdoor books on hiking,  cross country skiing and birds. 

    The Micro Manager had many books given to her and was good at seeing books she could pick up. She kept most of her nursing text books. 

   So the afternoon was spent going through our book collection. I'm not done yet . There are more books around the house.

               Examples of gifts I was given as a child

                Three boxes of books culled

              Way out of focus , but some of the books that were kept. 

    

      

I SHOULD HAVE ASKED BEFORE NOW

            My sister died in 1953 at age eleven. Children were ignored at this time when it came to grief. My bother and I put this death out of our heads. The first time my brother and I talked about our sister's death was when we were in our 50's. 

          So I was thinking recently as to what date my sister's death occurred. I thought this would be an easy find. I checked the stone on her grave. The only thing there was February 1953 and age eleven. Then I thought the local history book would have the date but it wasn't there either. I checked a genealogy sight and there was no date there either. So I emailed my brother and thought for sure that he would have the date. He didn't have the date. 

        So it's surprising that the date of death is missing and hard to find. 

        So I have emailed vital statistics and hope that they have her date of death. 

      Then I also thought, "What about Mom?" What was her date of death? Mom died in a November and there was no date of death. I looked in all the usual places for info and it was not there. 

      This has got me curious as to why the dates of death are missing.

     For one thing I'm looking for this information far too late. 

     I know I'll find these dates.

     Has this happened to other families? 

ANYBODY WANT SOME GOOD USED NECKTIES?

      It's spring cleaning at my house now. Other years I've just gone through the motions to dust a little here , wash a little here and put things back in place. 

     This year I have an added purpose. At my age a forced move could come at any moment. The micro manage and I have been talking about downsizing for years. To be fair we have got rid of a tremendous amount of stuff but there's lots here. A move would be a tremendous amount of work and if you move into a senior complex there's little room for  treasures. 

    So this year one of my mandates is to get rid of "stuff" . So yesterday I found 19 neckties in a closet. I haven't worn a necktie since 2012. Why do I need 19 neckties? I got rid of 16 and kept three. 

    In the good old days we wore neckties. I was a teacher and through most of my career we were expected to wear a shirt and tie. For most public functions we wore a suit and the shirt and necktie. Yes, church! Wear your good clothes . 

    So here I am with 16 extra neckties.

    The day before I found some perfectly good winter coats that I haven't worn for 30-40 years. So 4 pieces of good coats are moving out of here. 

    A fine Melton cloth winter over coat

    Leather winter coat that was very comfortable to wear

     A raincoat to go over your suit,

    A jacket I haven't worn for  very long time. 

NOT BRAGGIN...JUST SAYIN

      My Christmas cactus is setting blooms for the third time this year. It bloomed in early November and then again in December. And now it's in bud again. I thought they were to bloom only once. 

     I started this plant close to 10 years ago. The micro manager insisted that it be placed in a certain space. She's the plant waterer. She thought that since it was called cactus that it didn't need much water. It was not in a good place for light. The plant did not grow. 

    Three years ago I took over the management of the Christmas cactus. It developed quickly. Last year it bloomed. This year it's been very surprising. 

    For a little history of this plant. I started teaching in a new school in 1969. The vice principal had a few plants and he knew a few things about plants. He retired about 1974 and didn't want his plants and gave them to me. So one of them was a large Christmas cactus with dark blooms. 

    I kept the plant until 1997 when I retired. I "dragged" the plant home. The Micro Manager complained that the plant was too large. I took some cuttings and started several new plants. I kept one and gave the others away. So the plant I have now dates back to 1969. 

    This is a plant I won't part with as I always remember Nap with this plant. 

A LITTLE SNOW

   Today we are getting a little snow. Just enough to make it interesting. We've had about 3 - 4 cm which is normal for here . It's not enough to be a challenge to shovel.

     I fell sorry for some people in Ontario , Canada who got 26 cm of snow. That would be too much for me to shovel.