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The slow arrival of spring
FTLComm - Tisdale - Wednesday, April 6, 2011
With a lot of snow on the ground no matter how sunny, it takes a while for things to melt. What we have been seeing over this past week has been lots of sunlight and the day time temperature rarely getting above 5ºC each day., The streets and paved areas have soaked up the sun's warmth but the reflective fields and yards have all just settled a bit.

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There are some real advantages in this kind of spring as the run off should be more gradual as the water makes its way to the drainage ditches and low spots. So far the streams and the Dog Hide River have just been collecting some puddles and are some days from actually flowing.

Last Thursday, March 31, the snow and ice from the winter had departed the streets and sidewalks of downtown Tisdale. It looks like winter is over until you turn a corner and see the way the yards and side streets are filled with piles of snow and ice.

Over in Melfort on Thursday afternoon the ditches were filling with water and the parking lot at the mall on the North side of the little city was almost a lake. I was in one business in the mall and the staff were hustling about unable to deal with customers because water from the roof was coming down a drain and flooding the back portion of the operation. The were mops and pails and a good deal of surprise at this odd turn of events.

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On Friday, April First there were scattered spring clouds in the sky and I drove west of town to the Four Season's Greenhouse. People are at work getting the season underway. The parking lot had been cleared of deep snow. The fact is that spring is more of a process than it is an event this year. The nights are still well below freezing and though the process is cumulative it is far from sudden.

The view below was something we have all been waiting for. Prairie people do not have a lot of scenery to appreciate and for them the sky is the big ticket. Those clouds you see are high above the surface and distinctive pattern of warm air aloft and in the distance you can see the effects of the sun's warmth as it has turned snow to water and then to vapour which has risen to the cold layers above. Ah, yes that is not a winter cloud system.

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We in Tisdale have had almost no direct involvement in the ongoing spring election. The sitting member has put up signs on all four approaches to the town and one or two on main street. There has been no canvasing by candidates or their supporters, no public meetings or rallies, no constituency offices and only one piece of mail which was from the sitting member of parliament and was sent out at our expense with no statement of platform. One of the odd things about this election is this lack of platform. The present minority government is fighting the election without a platform, stated or unstated.
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Their television advertisements only talk about the opposition and offer no programme of their own. In someways the government's campaign is just downright creepy.

It worries me a great deal that multiple elections and attack advertising has a powerful effect on voters. They are no longer engaged in the political process. Actually there is is as I pointed out no political process in which to be engaged. No one is debating issues, the only proposed programmes are coming from the two main opposition parties and the voters have become immune to persuasion replacing intellectual discussion with name calling and meaningless slogans.
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The lack of moral standards in politics south of the border has pretty much taken over the Canadian scene. I feel like very old person harping about the good old days which for me was 1957 when John Diefenbaker and his Progressive Conservatives carried for the banner of Canadian nationalism and trumpeted the cause of getting rid of "hyphenated" Canadians. While the Liberals of the day championed stable government and the right for Ontario and Quebec to be in control of the country. There were issues, there were debates, not just between the politicians but around the dinner table, on coffee row and between shots in the curling game. Canadians were engaged and involved they put John in with a minority then followed that with a landslide then followed that with a Liberal majority. It was give and take and perhaps as few as ten percent of eligible voters did not vote. A far cry from the meager turn out in the last election, or for that matter what we can expect this time around.


Patches of field are starting to show up. This field is north of Tisdale and though there is heavy cover over most of the field in a few spots the black soil from last year's unplanted land is eager to dry out and be seeded this year. First we need the heat to melt the snow, dry the fields then Saskatchewan will once more attempt to produce yet another harvest.

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