The Greenwater Report for March 9, 2009

March 8th, 2009: Today started out pretty decent, just -12°C when we got up, with a light overcast which cleared early. We just got home from Al’s and Aimee’s and it felt like -40° with a strong wind. The temperature was still only -17°C but it was cold. You would think we would become acclimatized after that cold winter, but it just doesn’t happen.

It was a real family day for us. First, Lloyd and Louise came over for coffee, then before they left, Laurie dropped in. She and Bryan had come in to help Al with some basement renovations. We went over there for supper, and Jill and Mark, and Krista, were all there. Taryn and Braxton were on their best behaviour, and Tucker and Zoe (dogs) were friendly. Braxton is talking a blue streak now. Sometimes it’s a little hard to figure out just what he means, but he is patient.

Ron and Patty Malyk of Prince George visited us for a few days last week. Ron is Doreen’s nephew, and Lucille’s son. He used to be a timber faller on the west coast, cutting red cedar with a chain saw where the terrain is too steep for faller-bunchers and like equipment. The trees are too big, too. We have a picture of Ron standing on a stump that must be over eight feet in diameter; he cut it down with a four-foot chain saw. He used to stay at a camp on the north end of Vancouver Island; the crew would be helicoptered in to work, and the logs were helicoptered out. A couple of major operations made him realize that he might be getting a tad elderly for that type of work so he quit and went to a power engineering school. He should have his third class certificate before too long.

Ron started carving bowls in the west coast Indian fashion for awhile, selling them in stores in Victoria and Vancouver. Then he got a lathe and now does wood turning in a big way, making everything from elaborate bowls with fretwork, to pens, bookmarks, and pendants. This trip was primarily to see their daughter in Calgary and Ron’s mother here in Saskatoon, but also to deliver some of his work to stores in Banff and Calgary. He had a few pieces left when they got here so I grabbed the opportunity to take pictures of a couple of them that particularly appealed to me. Needless to say, we have quite a few of Ron’s bowls decorating our home.

We went to the Sport and Leisure Show at Prairieland Park yesterday. It was very busy – I had to park at the very far end of the parking lot. We had a very good time, doing lots of visiting. We spent some time at the Porcupine Plain booth chatting with Les and Donna Carpenter, Janet Reuther, Terry Zip and Allan Serhan. Les had a slide show I had made of pictures of Greenhills Golf Course running continuously on his laptop, and I must say it looked pretty good.

We spent quite a bit of time watching a dog training demonstration, first with retrievers, then with pointers. It was very interesting, despite the dogs being somewhat distracted by hundreds of noisy people all around them – they sometimes didn’t get their instructions quite straight, but they did show what could be done with proper training.

Boats took up most of the show, all the way from little twelve-foot rowboats to huge party barges. Docks, lifts and associated stuff were all over the place, and there were quite a few ATVs. We noticed several 4 X 4 estate vehicles with little dump boxes, cute things that would seat two people and carry quite a load. Where were all these gadgets when we had the acreage?