Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Celebrating New Year's Day...a Long Time Ago

     When I was a child, in the forties and early fifties, we celebrated New Year's Day with a meal and day similar to  Christmas with out the gifts. The menu was the same.

     We alternated celebrations with Mom's cousin. The big meal took place at noon. The cousins would arrive by horses and sleigh. This was not a fun sleigh ride but was the standard and only transportation at that time.

     We had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, veggies, cranberry and lots of pickles. There were usually twelve of us and we were all boys with big appetites so there wasn't much left. Delicious pie capped off the meal.

    Now I remember the delicious turkey. It wasn't the super dooper butter ball turkey which is filled full of sugar and other junk to make it taste better. We just had a plain old turkey that lived on the yard all summer where it ate grasshoppers, bugs, blades of grass, weeds and seeds. They were also fed some grain. They were the turkeys that really had flavor. To eat the turkeys sold today almost makes you cry.

    Now the afternoon was spent visiting and playing games. Sometimes the monopoly game went on all afternoon.
  
     Around 4:00 PM the Dads would go out and do the chores. The cows still had to be milked and fed.

    The evening meal was made from left overs of the noon meal. Much Christmas baking was still available and on the evening menu. After supper, more visiting and games. Sometimes there was singing. To wind all this up, there was cold turkey and ham at midnight with tea and more great Christmas baking. 

     So you see it was a full day of celebration.

    So New Year's Day , when I was a little kid, was an all day celebration.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

When You Fly, Don't Forget the Airplane

      Yesterday I took a flight and I didn't have an airplane. I didn't even have a parachute like DJan

      So my last post was flying when the airplane iced up. Conveniently yesterday, I took a another flight! I fell down the stairs!

     I survived the fall and the biggest wound was my pride. I was very fortunate and other than stretching a few things I had no injury.

    I was taking groceries downstairs so that they could be put away. I picked up a plastic pail that had a unattached lid  and a little box on top of the lid. This was a delicate balancing act. So with a bag of groceries in my right hand and the pail in my left hand I had to pivot on a step and then go down the stairs. Sounds simple, but I didn't make it. My feet were slower than a lot of other things.

    I fell from about 2/3 s up the stairs and went to the bottom and landed on the bread and some tin cans. The bread was a mess and the cans were badly bent out of shape. My micro manager was not too happy. She came to the top of the stairs to find out what all the noise was. Then she got in a huff about the mess I made. Somehow there were a lot of bread crumbs spread on the floor and she didn't like that!.

    So that's not a bad trick for a 74 year old. If you want my advice a 74 year old shouldn't even risk falling on the floor.

    So of course, here's for a safe 2014.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Nine Lives?

     About ten of the blogs I follow include cats to some degree. Some post about half the time on their cats and some the cats are only mentioned from time to time. I must say that there are some very well looked after cats out there.

    So thinking about cats reminded me of the "cats have nine lives thing." I got thinking that people probably have a number of lives. I'm sure I've used up a number of my nine lives.

    One of the nine lives I remember using up has to do with an airplane incident. I like flying and have flown for many hours in bush planes. 

    One September afternoon a pilot stopped at Wakeham Bay and was going on to Sugluk to drop off some freight and then back to Wakeham Bay to over night. The flight was about 3 hours return. September days there have shortened. The weather has gotten pretty chilly.

    The flight up was pleasant and we only stayed a few minutes to unload freight and started back. We expected to land just after sunset before it got dark.

   About half way through the flight we noticed the wings icing up. We were flying a few miles from Hudson strait so the humidity was high. As soon as the moisture hit the wings it froze. A few minutes later we had to pull the throttle back to have enough power to remain level. A few minutes later more power. What should we do? Land and bash off the ice. If we did this it would be too dark to take off and we would have to overnight on a lake. Losing altitude was not the only danger.  If the ice formed unevenly and one wing became heavier there would be another very nasty problem to control.

    The pilot opted to continue the flight. Because of the extra weight we flew slower and arrived at home just before it got dark. The pilot pulled the throttle back for a normal approach. The airplane dropped like a rock. He pulled the throttle back for full power and we just got things under control before we hit the water. Needless to say, it was a hard landing even on water.

   So there went one of my nine lives. It was an experience I'll never forget.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

My Snow is Getting Deeper

       Far Side has a snow stick that she sets up in the fall and it shows the snow all winter. I stuck a stick in the snow the other day to show you how much snow we have now.


The meter stick stuck in the snow on top of a table in my yard

       This area does not usually get a lot of snow. Some winters we have very little snow. We also have chinooks that come through and melt  a lot of snow. This much snow is quite unusual for us. 


That pile of snow really is on top of a table

       So if this wasn't enough snow, we had a major storm come through last night. There were high winds so most of the snow blew around. Visibility, right in town, was close to zero. 


And some English measurement!

      It was a good night to stay in and look out the window.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Blogger Blues

    My most ardent followers have noticed that I've been missing. I've reminded some that I'm still in business.  When you follow so many blogs it's hard to notice when some one goes missing.

    I've been missing for a month. I've been posting but people weren't finding me. In other words my feeds were not being picked up.

    It was disappointing for me as I missed the contact. It was difficult to post when you didn't know what might happen. You keep hoping the feed will magically return.

    I was trying to find out why my feeds were not being picked up and what to do about it. I did lots of searching...mostly in the wrong places. I found many people had the same problem I had. I didn't find any solutions. I got mixed up and confused many times. I contacted my son. I contacted a good friend. Everything came up empty. My friend left me with one comment ringing in my ears, "You should be able to find a blogger site which will help you." Sure enough. Yesterday I stumbled on to a blogger forum site. I asked my question. This morning in my email was an answer. I then started to worry about the security of the site. The answer came from nitecruzr. I hadn't seen anything about nitecruzr on the forum. I then realized the answer to my question was in the email. I reset what I was told and bingo my feeds returned.

    So a big thanks to nitecruzr.

    A big thanks to all of my followers. I've missed you. 

    Now don't give yourself homework and try to comment on all the posts. I'm  just happy if you start to comment on the new posts.

    So did I have blogger blues or what!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Winter Solstice

     Today is one of the more notable days of the year for us northerners. It's the shortest day of the year! Winter solstice! It's the first day of winter! Days start getting longer after this!

     Here the sun rose  at 8:42 this morning and set at 16:25 this afternoon. This gives us 7 hours and 43 minutes of the sun being up. We had a clear frosty day. We had a high of minus 16 C(  plus 3 F) and now at 8:30 it's minus 20 C(minus 5 F).

    Most years I have watched very carefully as the days shortened and darkened. I looked at each day's sunrise and sunset. The shorter days caused me some tension. I did look forward to the shortest day as I knew things would get better. This year , all of a sudden it's the first day of winter and I'm surprised! I have not been following with dread the increasing darkness.

   Many cultures have celebrations to mark the winter solstice. Now the day passes quietly. 

   So welcome to longer sunny days! 

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Stories From an Account Book

     In my last post I told you about a package that I received that held many stories. Of course I told the most fascinating one first.

    However, who knew that a plain ordinary little old farm account book could contain many stories? My Mom kept books for the farm. Things that were bought and sold were carefully entered. There were no totals or balances. The list just went on. The account book covered parts of the years 1944 - 1947.

    One entry, among many, caught my eye. The entry simply says Dr. and hospital boys tonsils. Aha! This is when my brother and I had our tonsils out! The doctor charge was $30.00 and the hospital charge was $17.00. There was no date for this entry, not even the year. I vaguely remember getting my tonsils out. I was not in school yet so it would have to be 1944. I can remember eating jelly in the hospital and getting into trouble from the nuns for getting out of bed to play with my brother. Once we got home we insisted on more jelly as we really liked jelly.

   The changes in charges are would be rather obvious. I wonder what the procedure changes would be? What would have been use for an anesthetic? What other medications would have been used?

    Shortly after this the Saskatchewan govt. brought in hospital care. So from that time on Saskatchewan residents did not have to pay for hospital care.

   So one entry brings back long ago memories. I'm sure that if I talked to my brother he would add more details.http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8688207620251526295#editor/target=post;postID=1929825484963442768;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname