Small band, big salaries

I find the pay that some of the Saskatchewan First Nations chiefs and councillors that are reported recently in the local newspaper seem to be quite a bit out of line with what happens in the rest of our province and I’m sure all small towns throughout Canada.  Using the example from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix article Small band, big salaries, a base salary of $94,977 for a councillor for a First Nation of 434 people is certainly out of line with what a councillor in a small town in Saskatchewan would receive. 

Using the example in the article for a First Nation with the population of 434 would be comparable to the Town of Hanley which has a population of 468.  The councillors in the Town of Hanley receive $100 per month if they attend a council meeting.  If the councillor doesn’t attend the monthly meeting then they receive zero.  So if the councillor attends every meeting in the year they would receive $1200.00.  For any outings that the councillor attends in the community (or other functions/duties) there is no extra pay, just the $100 for attending the monthly Town Council meeting.  Compare that to the First Nations salary of $94,977.00 and you definitely can see the problem.

Of course the small town councillor’s salary is paid by taxes by the citizens of the Town.  With the First Nation the salary comes from the Federal Government who of course gets the money to pay the First Nation councillor from the income taxes of small town Saskatchewan people and others throughout the country.  So how many First Nation people that live and work on the reserve pay property taxes?  I would say very few or probably none. 

It sure doesn’t appear to be rocket science why so many people feel there is just something definitely wrong with this situation.

Hearts A Tickin

What a nice morning for a walk-a-bout.  When I left it was –6C and the ground was frozen so it was easier to walk then in the mud of the last couple of days.  Not much of a moon out there so it was a bit darker than normal, but the stars were shining brightly.

I started out with a smaller dog come running and snarling at me within 1 minute of starting off.  Neighbour was out with his 3 dogs to let them have a pee break.  They are all smaller type animals.  One of them got loose of his leash and came charging at me snarling away.  At least the neighbour was right there to take control of his dog.   After all I sure didn’t want to put a size 12 down it’s throat so early in the morning

 

I finally got to the far edge of town and was walking up to this one house that has a lot of trees and bush around the doorway.  The streets are quite dark as well.  The owner has a homemade mailbox made out of wood and is fairly large to accommodate a couple days papers.  Just as I reached to drop off the paper his motion light finally came on and out jumped a cat that had been sitting on the mailbox.  The cat headed one way and I looked to head the other way.  Of course my heart was just a racing but at least I didn’t scream. 

I did mutter an obscenity however and had my head on a swivel for the rest of the walk home . . .

Foggy Out There

Holy smokes but is it ever foggy out there this morning.  Then add in the melting that occurred yesterday and it is slippery as all get out.

My paper guy was late again this morning due to the fog.  He also ran into a big old skunk and had a hard time driving with tears in his eyes.  He tried hanging his head out the window but then the tears just froze to his face and he still couldn’t see.  At least after my drop he is on the homeward bound leg of his night  He usually starts at about 10 p.m. and done by 7-8 a.m.

Now I actually get a night off.  My only night of the week that I don’t have to go out and clean.  Then the only day I don’t have to get up early is tomorrow morning.  I’m on a roll

It’s Cold Out There

When I got up this morning it was –14.6 C.  Thank goodness the wind went down or it would have brutal on the morning walk.  As it was the coyotes were just howling up a storm this morning.  I would say they were voiced their displeasure with the drop in temperatures.

Other than the coolness it was a nice walk this morning.  Of course it is slippery as all get out with the rain, snow, melting that has gone on for the last couple of days.  So far no falls and I hope it continues that way

This is Not Nice

Old Mother Nature sure spit out raspberries yesterday/last night.  The snow just kept coming, and coming.  Of course there is a real nice inch or two of ice under the snow so it is slippery as all get out.  The wind is still blowing quite strong which is putting a nice crust on the snow banks and slicking up the ice patches even more so.

Needless to say my papers didn’t arrive until 9:20 a.m. which makes it a bit difficult to get them delivered by 7 a.m.   While I was waiting I took the snow blower to my driveway and the sidewalks in my area.  I was going great guns until I sucked up a rock and it jammed the impeller.  That was the end of the snow blowing for the morning.  I did get the machine back into the garage and put a heater on it to melt some of the ice and snow so I could see what was wrong.  As soon as I saw the rock I knew I had found the problem.  Once I got a pry bar and a large hammer and removed the rock, then the blower was back in good shape once again. 

By the time I had the blower fixed I figured I’d better get down to the hall and clean off the walkway for the days traffic.  Lots of ice on the sidewalk so I used the scraper and got a fair amount removed.  I’ll pick up some salt today and get rid of the rest.  Right now with the wind blowing so hard there isn’t a lot of sense throwing salt on as it will just blow away.

After that I noticed my papers had just arrived so I headed out at 9:25 a.m for my normal 45 minute walk.  With all the nice slippery roads and snow drifts I didn’t get home until 10:45 a.m.  So 45 minutes took me 80 minutes today.  Of course with all the trudging through the snow, my legs feel like rubber.  I’m sure they’ll be a bit sore tomorrow.

Sandra actually had a appointment in the city today to see a therapist, but with the roads the way they are I just felt it was not worth it so I cancelled it.  I called the office and got another appointment early in November which is actually better for us.

As I’m typing this the sun actually popped out.  Hopefully it will stay out and melt a bit of this darn white stuff for us.  We can only hope anyway.  It will be soon enough that the snow will be here to stay though so we might as well get used to the idea.

Nasty Morning

We knew it was coming and that it was only a matter of time before it arrived.  We got our first taste of the upcoming winter over night.  It drizzled all day yesterday and as the day moved on it got cooler.  On my way home last night at about 10 pm I could definitely feel the bite in the air.

I was not surprised when I went out this morning at 5:45 am to find a skiff of the white stuff.  The wind was/is quite strong coming out of the northwest.  This didn’t make for a very nice last 1/2 kilometer walk home as I had to walk right into the wind.  It is snowing albeit sort of a pellet type snow, but with the strong winds the face takes a kicking when you are walking directly into it.

The weatherman says we should have this off and on all day today.  But of course it will warm up a bit and take all of this away.  It is our wakeup call to what is to come for the next 5 months or so

Foggy Morning

The fog was hanging quite thick over the town as I did my morning papers.  Of course after yesterday’s 7 mm of rain, the roads are a bit mucky, but the new gravel that was put on some of the streets certainly helps.  Another benefit of the little rain we had is that it settles the dust down.  With no rain for the last 2-3 weeks everything was powder dry and the least movement caused the dust to fly.

However, I guess we shouldn’t complain as the local farmers did need some dry weather to try and get their crops off.  There are some that will just have to wait until freeze up as the grounds are too wet still to drive on.

What a year for weather

Scary Thoughts

For the last week or so the sky around town has been full of geese. There is a field of peas just on the edge of town and the geese have found it and are delighted in filling up on the peas for their long jaunt south. Sometimes the air is just black (and white) with the geese trying to get the best landing spot checked out. Of course they are very vocal as well when they are trying to land and when they are landed and feeding.

The one strange thing I have found for the last couple of days is that when I'm heading out bright and early in the morning; I'm hearing chick-a-dees chirping away. Now what the heck are they doing this far south at this time of the year. Normally we don't hear/see them until the middle of winter when it gets too stormy in the north. We haven't even had a sniff of snow yet and in actuality the weather has been quite nice for the last couple weeks. No rain finally :)

I'm just hoping this is not a sign of what we are going to be in for this coming winter. Mind you the way our weather has been since last year, I certainly would not be surprised if we had a lot of snow and a long cold winter. Brrrrrrr

Is It A Rule?

I turned on the TV the other day and was presented with the weatherman from CTV Regina giving us the good news about the upcoming weekend. His name for those of you who don't watch this channel is J.C. Garden and goes by just JC.

So once the weather was done I switched over to Global Saskatoon to watch a bit of the sports. The sports cast announcer is Kevin JESUS.

I continued to watch a bit of national news on Global and the story was sent to 'the reporter in the field', Ross LORD.

Okay, what the hell is it with all these people having these names on the TV news?

I was tempted to channel surf around the channels to see if I could find Mary MAGDALENE out there somewhere broadcasting away, but that would be just too much for my feeble brain to try and digest at one sitting.

I did come to the conclusion that it must 'Be A Rule' to have a funky name if you are on the TV news, weather or sports.

It's Getting Better Every Day

It's not even the end of March yet and I saw and heard my first couple of robins this morning while out delivering the papers. They were just a singing away from the treetops. Mind you they may be singing to complain about the ground being too hard (ie frozen) yet to get any worms, but at least they are here.

After I saw the robins I took a good look around and holy smokes, the snow has almost disappeared. It is just unbelievable how fast the snow has melted. The other thing is that there is not that much water left around. That would gel with what I thought. We just didn't get very much snow this past winter and what we had didn't have a very high water content. I've already heard that sloughs that are normally overflowing at this time of year have hardly a trickle of water in them.

It could be a dry, dusty summer! But of course if we get some rain in the May/June timeframe it will change everything.

Not a darn thing you can do about it though, so you might as well just go with the flow :)

Still Not Spring Yet!

We went from +16 C yesterday, March 17th to -3 C (-9 C with the windchill) today. Believe me the wind seems to just blow right through you. Of course half the population is already switching over to lighter coats/jackets, no gloves, etc so it seems even colder than it really is. At least with the higher winds, the snow cover is disappearing quite quickly.

This morning while I was delivering the papers the puddles were not totally frozen as I so eloquently found out. I had to cross the ditch at one customers house and I stepped on the ice only to sink in over my ankle. This was just about the furthest out on my route, so needless to say I had a wet and soggy cold walk home for the return trip. At least the roads are drying up a bit.

Soon we will be complaining about the dust blowing around :)

Getting Close To Spring

For the last couple of days we finally have been getting a bit nicer weather. The sun is actually coming out and warming up everything. The snow is melting and the roads are getting muddy.

But today I got another first of the new spring year and that was while I was doing the papers this morning a lonely goose came flying over the town just a honking away. Now this isn't too unusual as there are geese that stay around the province all winter, just normally not in our neck of the woods.

This goose that winging by this morning was heading north at a good clip. So maybe it knows something we don't :)

Crappy End To The Year

With the announcement of 4 Slain Soldiers Identified the count for killed military members in Afghanistan rises to 138. This time there is also the additional death of a journalist to be reported on.

It is sad enough that our military members are being killed. They are serving their country and doing what their government tells them to do and go where they are told. However, the journalist personally chose to travel to Afghanistan and put herself in harms way. Lang's intentions were great and noble as she wanted to get the soldiers story out, however, Afghanistan is still a war zone and no place for civilians to be outside of the wire, journalist or not.

For myself, 2011 can't come soon enough. I don't really see that in 10 years time we in the West are going to see any difference in Afghanistan than there was prior to the start of this war. As soon as all the military leave, the Taliban will be right back in power and reverting to their revolting practices and way of living. I guess we in the West didn't learn anything from the Russians attempt to 'take control' of Afghanistan in the past.