Feeling Sorry For The Grandkids

At 4:00 pm I walked downtown to check the mail. My oh my is it toasty outside. Walking down the street it felt like the very air you breathed was on fire. Thankfully there was a bit of a breeze to help cool me a bit. I didn't waste any time getting back home and into the house and the air conditioned air. I then felt so sorry for my grandkids in Regina knowing that they have no air conditioning at home. I also remembered my niece in Weyburn with no air conditioning as well and certainly felt for her and her family as well.

Then I thought I'd compare a few of the weather stats for Hanley, Regina, Weyburn and for a comparison (for me), Hamilton Bermuda. It certainly is warm in all places. Regina does come out on top of the heap, but not by a lot.

Let's see:

Bermuda's temp is 27 with the humidity of 79% it feels like 38
Hanley's temp is 35 with the humidity of 30% it feels like 39
Weyburn's temp is 38 with the humidity of 20% it feels like 40
Regina's temp is 34 with the humidity of 47% it feels like 43

Believe you me, the humidity of 79% in Bermuda would be a killer for most of us 'flatlanders'. Actually a 79% is fairly low for the island country. When I lived there (1972-74) it was not uncommon to have a humidity level near the 95-98% level daily. Mind you the temps didn't waiver too much from around the 25-28 degree mark. Still all in all, the humidity just saps you. Even with a breeze it doesn't cool you down like it does when you have a lower humidity.

So now I do feel badly for the poor grandkids in Regina and only hope Wendell decided he needed to check out the mall or something to give them a break. Same same for Shar-Lee and family. A nice long stroll through the mall would probably be about right for today.

The forecast doesn't appear to have much relief for the next 5 days though.

Just think though, less than 5 months and it will be Christmas :) and hopefully we'll have some nice cool white snow.

Too Hot Outside


Seeing as it is just a way too warm outside, I've been couped up in the house all day. When that happens, my fingers always want to play on the keyboard. Some days are good and then some days are not so good.

As you can tell already, I've been playing with the templates on the Blogger Blog. The old template just wasn't doing it for me of late, so I figured I'd try something new. Now whether I'll keep the current template or move to something else, I'm just not sure.

Depends on how warm it gets outside in the next day or so as to whether I get to play on the keys :)

The House Is Quiet Once Again

We had a nice visit with grand daughter Julia and her dad Craig for the last week. As a 3 1/2 year old, Julia is like the energizer bunny, just goes and goes and goes and goes . . .

On Friday we made the trip to Regina in one of the hotter days of late (aren't they all lately). We had to go right into the heart of the city in the downtown core business area so Craig could take care of some business. The temp in the truck showed it was 33 C outside and where we were parked there was no breeze. I turned the truck off after I parked, but within about 20 seconds I restarted it so we would have some air conditioning.

After 15 minutes I had to get out and replug the parking meter. I tried to convince Sandra it was her turn, but she wasn't having any of that. Julia just looked at me as if I was daft when I suggested she do it. Her poor little arms wouldn't even reach the meter let alone be able to plug the thing. But give me A for effort as I tried. With no takers I climbed out and was hit by the blast furnace. Sheesh was that warm.

With Craig's business taken care of, we travelled to the north end of Regina to meet with Nicole and do the exchange of Julia. Believe me when I say we didn't dawdle outside the truck too long.

I did manage to get Julia and Craig to pose for a pic or two, but I was having a hard time getting them in sync. One would look away just as I took the pic or the other one would close their eyes just as the flash went off. With a little effort I was able to finally get one shot that I figure I could use on the blog.

Here's Julia and her dad Craig:



I'll have to try and get a pic of the other 3 scallywag grand daughters the next time they are up visiting. Trying to get those 3 dynamos to sit still for a pic can be quite hard at times, but we'll definitely make the effort.

Warm Day for a Road Trip


I normally am not an early morning person, however, today I did make the exception and got out of the sack earlier than normal. My mother (who is 76) wanted some help in cleaning up her mother's grave and wanted some assistance. How in the heck are you supposed to say 'no' to your 76 year old mother? Why even try and why should you. I was absent enough years throughout my working career that I most definitely would not be denying mom's request.

Last week when I was in the city I had purchased some supplies and in the last week I readied the very basic supplies for my grandmother's grave (ie painting, cutting, etc).

Early this morning we headed for the city and met mom and headed westbound to the what used to be called the town of Kelfield. The town (village or hamlet) doesn't officially exist anymore as everyone has essentially moved away or passed on save for a few folks that live in the area. There is no more the thriving town of 1950's vintage. Just a few empty buildings and a couple of families that live in the former town confines.

On arrival we found that the local graveyard had been recently mowed and to my eye it looked very well kept. Kudos to folks that look after this cemetery. It is a great job that you do.

My grandmothers grave is a very simple site with a headstone. My older brother Richard, who was raised by our grandmother, had built the form to mark the grave back in about 1992. The weather had taken it's toll over the years on the lumber and the form was literally turning to sawdust. So we created a new form to replace the previous form, painted it up and placed it around the grave site.



While I was busy putting the forms together, Rick cleaned the weeds from the grave with help from my son Craig. Once put in place, it definitely seemed to spruce up the final resting place of a great lady and a grandpa that I barely knew.

I hope that both Grandma and Grandpa Penley rest a bit easier knowing that someone still cares for them even after all these years...




Rest In Peace . . .

Something Smells

The more I read regarding the recently announced plan from Vigoro, the more I find that twitches my nose to this situation. It just 'stinks'.

If you look at a news announcement from 2006, you see that a Mr. Summers is the Chairman and CEO of VIGOR BIOTICS, INC. from Kenora, Ontario.

If you look a little further back, you see in July 2005 that Mr. Summers was in trouble with the law regarding a new biotechnology plant.

Skipping forward I find the article from North Bay Nugget stating that Mr. Summers is not always a truthful person.

From what I read, I personally won't be having any dealings with this man or his company, but that is my right as an individual.

I'm hoping the Town Council gets to the bottom of this fellow and the company and makes the right decision.

Trouble With The Deal

It would appear that the recently announced new company that is planning on setting up shop in Hanley may not be all that they say. This morning, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix had a headline Questions Surround Hanley Plant which certainly brings some credibility problems to the Vigor BioPharma and it's frontman, Gordon Summers. Mr. Summers appears to be quite familiar with fraud and forgery. He actually has served time in jail for a conviction of forgery and attempted fraud from Ontario.

A company representative states that the company still plans to go ahead in Hanley, however, there does need quite a few questions answered before the plan goes forward any further.

At least the Town and people around have been forewarned about this company and what they have for a track record in the past. People are going to want to get a lot of questions answered before they will put their trust in a company with Vigor BioPharma's record.

Thank goodness it was brought to light at this early stage of the game. Thank you to the Saskatoon Star Phoenix for doing a bit of digging. I don't think anyone wants to see a building built in town to just sit there empty in a few years.

Blogger and Blogs

I have been using Internet Explorer 7 to type up and view my blog entries since August 2006. This has been working fine as Blogger does have some neat stuff that you can use. Then I opened up my blog (and a few others) in Firefox. The blog definitely needs some work as the type face are different etc. The formatting in Firefox is the same as IE, but there are other subtle problems with viewing in Firefox.

With that in mind, I thought I'd state that as well as using Blogger to publish my blog I have also being using another blogging program, WordPress. I actually started my blogging life off with WordPress and then converted over to Blogger, however, I have kept up both blogs. They have for the most part identical content, however, there has been the odd thing that I haven't been able to convert over directly. I'm working on these small glitches to see if I can figure them out.

One thing I like about the WordPress blog, is that the actual blog seems to be a more clean type looking blog. That being said, I do like Blogger for what can be done with it.

So for any of you that have trouble reading the posts in Blogger, may I suggest you try my WordPress blog. It can be found at:

Old Red Jacket Talker

The Town is Booming



With the assistance of a local real estate firm, the Town of Hanley has attracted a couple companies to set up shop in our small town.



The major company is ViGor Biopharma which is a research development and pharmaceutical manufacturer of medicinal treatment for breast and ovarian cancer as well as having medicine for side affects of chemotherapy.



The other part of the business venture is Aurum Biotech which essentially is a nursery that develops Yew tree seedlings for farmers.



Good things are certainly coming to Saskatchewan in the last while and more importantly to small town Saskatchewan. This recent development is probably the largest development that Hanley has seen for many, many years (if not decades).

I can only say, "I am so happy that I bought my home when I did". The prices are definitely on the up swing for the town at present.

New Housing For Hanley

The official sod turning for the new Hanley Seniors' Housing Project being built under the Centenary Affordable Housing Program took place in town today at 11:30 a.m.




The Government of Canada was represented by our MP for Blackstrap, Lynn Yelich. The Province of Saskatchewan was represented by Kevin Yates and the Town of Hanley was represented by Mayor Don Lynn and Deputy Mayor Daryl Grindheim.

The Seniors Housing Project is comprised of 11 - 2 bedroom units and 1 - 1 bedroom unit. The federal government assisted with a $324,000. grant with the Province also supplying funding. The Town of Hanley and the citizens of the town will be supplying their labour to convert the following unit into these apartments. The total amounts supplied (including the Town's) is approximately $800,000 plus. In this day and age there are bound to be over runs, so I would presume we are looking at probably 1 to 1.5 million before it is all said and done.



There are actually 3 of the units as above and they will be put together in a 'T' formation to enable the 12 units along the long section of the complex and the 3rd unit in the middle of the project. This 3rd unit will hold the laundry room, communal room, heating plant etc. In the future it is also hoped to build in a kitchen facility to enable home delivery of meals to the units.

The complex is already fully booked with residents waiting to move into their unit when the complex is completed. However, there is quite a bit of work to be done before I envision anyone actually moving into their unit. There needs to be a huge amount of work to clean out the inside of the buildings as they now exist and convert to individual living units. There are going to be many, many hours of voluntary labour to enable this complex to get fully developed. The citizens of Hanley (as most small towns) are noted for their volunteerism to their community. This project will certainly task us all to do our part to help.

I of course have signed up to do what I can when I can. We all need to help as best we can.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

We have had quite the weather in the last couple of days. The rain and hail that went through the area the other day missed us here in Hanley, but did quite a bit of damage just north of here in Dundurn and Allan.

A fellow in Dundurn (10 minutes north of here) retrieved hail stones that were the size of baseballs. Just imagine a baseball dropping from the height of the clouds and you can picture what kind of damage they could and did do. The hail smashed windows on vehicles and houses and caused a great deal of damage to everything else in its path. It doesn't take much to believe the damage that a hail stone could do to a little blade of wheat or canola. As stated, we did get a bit of wind, but no hail right here in town. I haven't heard how close it did get to us, but even 10 minutes away is a too darn close.

For most of today we had a 'tornado watch' from Environment Canada going on. I really can't remember ever seeing or hearing of such a thing as a 'tornado watch' before here in Saskatchewan. Indeed there was a spout spotted up in the Dundurn area today, however, it doesn't look like it came down and caused any problem what so ever. For us here in Hanley, we got about 14 millimeters of rain this morning and then another 14 millimeters this afternoon for a total of 28 millimeters for the day. So that is just over an inch of rain. When it was raining, it was coming down in huge sheets of water.

Needless to say my yard is soaked with all the rain today and the previous dumping on the weekend. I was going to cut my grass today and possibly try and get into the garden to try and pull some of the weed growth out, but that just was not to be. I'll be lucky if I can get out in the garden in a couple days (if we get some sun). With no more rain tomorrow, I should be able to mow the lawn though. But with all the moisture, the weeds certainly are growing leaps and bounds. I know I planted some vegetables in the garden, but you would be hard pressed to find them now with the weeds the way they are. Just leaving for 5 little days and the garden seems to have been overtaken.

However, at least there were no tornados touching down around Hanley. We certainly can be thankful for that at least.

Lucky Day or Full House ?

I have been listening to all the hype about the luck of getting married on July 7, 2007 (ie 7 - 7 - 07) etc. Of course this is 3 sevens which is supposed to give you luck whether it is getting married, gambling (same thing as getting married now a days, isn't it?), or lotteries.

I got to thinking of my wedding anniversary which is July 17, 1971 and as far as I can see, we did a lot better than the 7-7-07. If you look at it as 17 - 7 - 71 you can see we have 3 sevens and a pair of aces (ie a full house).

A full house always beats three of a kind to my thinking :)

Seeing as we are coming up on number 36 wedding anniversary, maybe there is something to the luck of the sevens or in our case the full house.

A Picture to Remember the Past

I uploaded the bad pictures about the cabin, but then I figured I should also upload a few of the better sides of the place. The cabin holds so many memories to so many people....




Then the final shot is of the entrance to the two places. To those that haven't been up in the area for awhile, you can see that the trees definitely have grown up since 1990 or so...



It still is one of my favourite places in the province . . .

What A Shame

We managed to spend 5 days up at Christopher Lake over the July 1st long weekend. Seeing as we were at the lake, we just had to have one good dumping of rain. This occurred on Friday night, June 29th and did it ever rain. But as normally happens at the lake, within a day you didn't know it had rained.

Of course there are pools of water laying in the bush which we all know are great breeding grounds for mosquitoes. There certainly were lots of the little blood suckers around, but after I got a smudge going in the chiminea they left me alone for the most part.

One interesting thing that occurred was when we first drove into the property I noticed a power line was down between my place and the neighbours (former Mayers cabin). I of course stopped the truck and got out to take a peak. I ascertained that it was the phone line and not power, so I moved the line out of the way and continued into our spot and got the truck/trailer unloaded. As the neighbours seldom show up at their cabin, I wasn't in any hurry to report the downed line and besides I was aware the neighbours did not have their phone hooked up. Once I did get my place straightened away I did call into SaskTel and reported the downed line and I would imagine eventually they'll send out a crew to fix it up.

It was interesting though on Friday afternoon when a Sask Power truck showed up. I thought someone may have gotten their wires crossed but on speaking to the fellow he advised he was there to disconnect the power to the neighbours cabin. It was then that I noticed that the neighbours sign with their names on it was taken down. Hummmm. But then I got busy doing something else and didn't think anything more about it. Oh yah, the Sask Power guy didn't disconnect their power as he saw that they were using electricity and he didn't want to shut down their freezer. So he just left.

Then on Saturday an truck pulled up and the fellow asked if the cabin was the Hesje's cabin. When I advised him that it was, three fellows got out and started looking around. I of course asked what was happening and they proceeded to explain that the owner wanted them to fix up the foundation of the cabin. I then walked around the neighbour's cabin with the workers and saw what they meant.

For any of you who had occasion to visit the Mayers cabin in the past, you know that it was a yearly task to level the cabin and ensure that it didn't slip further back into the swamp. That meant jacking it up and shimming the beams etc. Well the new owners didn't figure he needed to do any levelling and the end result are shown in the following pictures:






On further talking to the workers, they advised that the plumbing underneath the cabin is all torn up and broken as well. That makes sense as it was plastic and it doesn't give much at all. The cabin has probably fallen backwards close to 2 feet in the last year alone. While we were talking the Sask Power fellow came back and commenced to disconnect the power to the cabin. It was either that or the line was going to be pulled down from the weight of the cabin slipping further backwards.

Just remembering all the good times that occurred at the cabin makes you want to shake your head at the waste that it has become. But there is nothing we the family can do about that now. It was sold (or should I say given away) and that is that.

Still it is a shame :(

I Thought I Was On A Holiday !

Here I am retired (supposedly); so I go away for a long weekend (ie June 28th to July 3rd) to the great north country of pines and water. My life is slow paced compared to what it was a few years ago when I was in DOCC Saskatchewan so I figured my email box would be fairly skimpy on my return to the 'connected world'.

I open up my email and lo and behold I have 545 email messages waiting for me. What the heck ! I've only been gone for not quite 5 days and I have that many messages waiting for my peepers to take a look at them. There must be a lot of crap in there I figure. So I got down to the task of rooting out the spam that I know must be there.

Gosh I tried and tried and I think I removed about 5 messages from my que. That still leaves about 540 messages that I have to look through as bonafide email messages. That is a way toooooo many I think, but then I remember just a few years ago when I was working that number would most likely have been a few higher than that.

I decided to check and lo and behold, when working I probably would have received about 1500+ messages when I was gone on such as short time frame (ie 5 days). I know I don't have to reply to about 1/3 of the email's I receive, but then if I didn't reply to 1/2 of the 1/3, then maybe my inbox would shrink even further. Maybe I would be able to actually reply to all that sent me a message while I was away that actually deserve a reply.

As I contemplated all of the above, I figured, if I decided to not reply I would likely not deserve to receive the messages from people that felt it was important enough to send me the message in the first place. Eventually my Inbox would dry up and I would not have the privilege of conversing with prior workers, friends, new acquaintances, etc, and I my Inbox would be empty.

That doesn't sound like much fun at all.

Keep those emails coming, I thoroughly enjoy each and every one.... It may take me a while to get back to you individually, but eventually I will.

I read them all and definitely thank all the folks that take the time to send me a message. If you think it is important to send it, I think it is important enough to read it.

Keep 'em coming....

Hanley Legion 2007 Zone Golf Tournament

The Hanley Branch #258 hosted the Zone Golf Tournament on June 10th, 2007. The day started out rainy, but ended up being an excellant day of golf.

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Thank you to all that golfed, or assisted with the day.

It was a very worth while day.....

The Influx Has Started

On our return from the city yesterday we saw that the first of the influx of the new families that are to be moving into town has begun.




This family is the one that is moving in across the street from us. The 'modular' home that was moved into place last Friday. Throughout the weekend there were workman working on the home. It appears that some of the siding got warped in the move, so they had to replace some of the panels. As well a few of the shingles lifted, so they also had to be replaced. The only drawback is that we were inundated with rain over the weekend. But it appears the workers did get it done (at least cosmetically). I'm not sure if there was any damage inside or not.

From looking inside the Atlas trailer when we drove up, it was apparent that this was a full house of belongings. The trailer was packed with the new owners belongings. Also as we were turning into our driveway, I had the opportunity to view one of our new neighbours. The lady of the house was walking down the street to her van with 3 little tykes in tow. Three little girls that look about ages from about 1 1/2 to about 4 or so. It sure must be exiting for these girls to be moving into a brand new town in a brand new province and then into a brand new house. I'm sure mom and dad are probably feeling the pinch of stress though with the move. I can appreciate what they are going through after going through it myself just 2 1/2 years ago. Mind you I was just moving down the highway a couple hours and not right across the country. This family is moving in from New Brunswick, so I'm sure there will be a few things different for them here in Saskatchewan.

In conjunction with the new 'modular' home moving in, I've been hearing some folks bitching that it is just a glorified trailer. In Hanley, there is apparently a bylaw that trailers cannot be set up on main street. Of course our street is the main street into town. A way back when, there was a trailer on this lot, however, once it was moved out (tore down) or whatever, the town changed the bylaw. The previous owner of the lot could not sell the lot to anyone because it was such a narrow lot. Eventually from what I hear she just gave the lot back to the town so she didn't have to pay taxes on it. Now of course we have this new trailer, oops excuse me, 'modular home' that is moved in and occupying the lot. Sure the whole cost for the trailer, land, etc is about $150,000., but it is still a type of trailer. I certainly have some symathy for the previous owner, but time changes and we have to change with them. Of course that doesn't help her pocket book any though.

As small towns do, some of the folks are 'for' the trailer and some are 'against' the trailer. For myself it doesn't really matter that much that it is a modular home (or trailer). The idea that we have 5 new people in town that will be paying taxes, shopping, going to school, etc is a much better idea than having the lot sit empty all the time. Or at the best being empty so the other neighbour can park his 5th wheel trailer on it in the winter or when he is home. Give me new people any day. The modular home is very nice looking and as long as these new people are going to keep it up and their yard, then I have no problem with it being a modular home or a trailer.

Possibly some of the negative people in town should look at a few of the shacks that are in town or take a look at the yards of some of the folks. They are a few that are like mini dumps. There is even one of these so called classy houses right on main drag. As a matter of fact the one I'm thinking of is the first house you see as you drive into town. It is a real nice palace :( I think the best thing that could happen to it is if a bulldozer ran amuck in the neighbourhood. But it is a house, so it is fine.

All I can say, "Welcome New Neighbours". Hope there are many more to come.

Boom Town Here We Come

Along with my best bud Jim and and his wife Bonnie moving to town, we actually have something like 15 new houses that are being built or moved into the town this summer/fall and into early next year. Note this is supposedly not 15 new families, but 15 new houses/families moving into town. I don't think the town has seen a boom like this since back in the 50's.

One of those houses is right across the street from us. The town and a local contractor have been busy as all get out this week trying to get the lot ready for this new house. This entailed new sewer, water lines, etc. I can vouch that 'Dusty Rose' and our town maintenance fellow 'Terry' have been working their asses off all week trying to get this lot ready as I watched them out my front room window. Tip of the hat to them for sure and it appears they did just a great job.

This evening about about 9 pm, the new 1400+ square foot house was moved into place on the lot across from us. The house was built in Medicine Hat and transported to Hanley today. The new owners are supposedly military folks from New Brunswick with a couple young kids.

There is still some setting up to do on the house, but the main thing is that it is here and on site. The wiggling and whatnot will take a day or so, but then the new tenants can take possession and we'll have some new citizens for our town.

Talking to our Town Administrator and he advised that the whole thing (house, transport, set up, etc) came to about $149,500.00. That is a whole lot cheaper than what shacks are going for in the city of Saskatoon at present.

Of course it is so nice to have an addition to our small community as well.

Bring them on :)

Knock Me Down and Call Me Dusty !

As I was out for my evening walk on Tuesday evening I happened across Al Parker out watering his petunia's. Of course I said hello to him and 'how the week was going, etc' and the next thing I know he invited me in for coffee. For anyone that is familiar with Al, a coffee is about 5 cups of the diesel kind, no decaf there.

As we chatted along he mentioned about the new people that had bought the lot down the street from us. This guy's name was Scarfe and his dad had something to do with the 'Canada Remembers' Air Show. As I was very familiar with Jack Scarfe who was one of the original founders of the Air Show, I asked what this fellows given name was. Al figured it was Jim or James. I just about fell off my chair at this point. I then asked Al if he knew what this fellows wife's name was and he thought it was Darlene or something similar but that they were from Haywarden, Sask. We immediately looked in the phone book and found a listing for a 'B Scarfe' in Haywarden.

Now a bit of history here . . .

When I was about 13 years of age I joined the militia. Yup you were supposed to be 16 to be able to join, but I lied. The next summer (ie when I just had turned 14) I was fortunate enough to take training out at Detachment Dundurn. Lo and behold one of my fellow trainees was one James Gara Scarfe. Well we hit it off and continued our relationship after we got back to Saskatoon. The next year we both ended up back at Dundurn on training and continued our relationship.

On our weekends off, we would depart Dundurn and hitch hike north. Jim would be heading towards Waskesiu and I was heading to Christopher Lake. As you can imagine we had the opportunity to walk many a mile together. Mind you we were in uniform when we were hitching and this was 1965 so it didn't take too long to catch a ride. But our relationship/friendship grew throughout the summer and then continued on to the following year when we were once again at training in Dundurn. Needless to say we did stay in contact even when we were back in Saskatoon. But I'm getting ahead of myself. That first year I met Jim was 1964 and he had very important information for myself as a fellow young male.

My new found friend Jim advised me of this family he was familiar with that had 3 young foxy ladies (now remember we are talking 14-16 years of age). Of course I had to meet these fine young lasses so Jim was more than willing to introduce us. In due course I was introduced to the Mayers family and Sandra, Patricia and Isabel. To say I was smitten would be the understatement. The long and short of the story was that I did end up in matrimony to my wife of 36 years, Sandra. Yup this would be the former Sandra Mayers.

Fast forward to June 12th . . .

About 11:45 a.m. I called the 'B Scarfe' phone number in the phone book. I of course used *67 so the person would not know who was calling (see I did learn something in my years with the RCMP). A woman answered the phone and I asked if this was Bonnie Scarfe I was talking to. Oh yah, my friend Jim Scarfe from Dundurn had married a Bonnie Cherry. So far, so good.

I then asked Bonnie if she was married to Jim (James) Scarfe and if they had just recently bought a lot in the town of Hanley. She replied in the affirmative. I then advised her that she had just made her new neighbour one of the happiest people in the world. She asked me who that would be and I replied that it was myself. She then asked who I was (remember *67) and I advised her what my name was. Bonnie's retort was "NO WAY", "NO WAY".

I assured her that I was indeed who I said I was. She then yelled at Jim that he had better get to the phone right away. I could hear in the background as Jim came to the phone, "who is this and what the heck did they want". I then went through the same scenario with Jim as with Bonnie. Same reaction of disbelieve and then when it sunk in he comment was "there goes the neighbourhood". Nice guy, heh?

Go figure that two best friends, Jim and I, have not been in contact with each other for going on 25 years or so and then we find that we are living approximately 25 kms away from each other for the last two years. Now we are going to be living across the street from each other in a town of 500 people and neither one of us has any prior connection to the town.

Small world.

To say that I'm just tickled pink that one of my best friends from my past will be living across the street from me would be an understatement just doesn't come close to what I'm feeling at this point in time. I'm just flabbergasted.

But damn do I like it :)

Are The Hanley Boys Practicing?

I just came across the attached video and just have to wonder if Hanley's Finest are out practicing to catch our locals when they go 4 wheeling :)



In this case, I'm thinking the 'Queens Cowboys' catch the bad guys!

Help For Spousal Abuse

As a further to the previous blog on the family with an abusive man in their lives, the man took the family hostage and eventually the police service came to try and stabilize the situation. The man ends up trying to slice his throat, however, wasn't very successful. Now that isn't a very nice thought to make, but it sure would solve part of the problem. At least now he is in custody and will likely face a bit of jail time. In our judicial system it probably won't be very long with good behaviour, double time, etc. However, that is the way the system works.

So now we have the mom at home with her children. However, she doesn't appear to be the best mom in the world and as a good citizen, you feel it is your duty to try and get the woman some help, but at the very least get the children taken care of. So who do you call or turn to? The police are already involved and should have an inkling that there definitely is something wrong in this house. However, maybe they are not up to speed with what the woman is actually like. So, do you call your police department and let them in on what you feel is going on or do sit back and do nothing? If you do call, are you viewed as a meddling neighbour or a concerned citizen? I'm hoping for the concerned citizen.

Another recourse is Social Services (ie Community Resources in Saskatchewan). I have heard of people that have called this department only to be told to mind their own business. I'm hoping that is just an individual that would state something like that and no way a policy of the whole department. So you call Social Services and voice your concerns for the safety of the children. However, it seems to be that the department do try their utmost to keep a family together even when it has been shown to be an abusive and unfit situation for children. I'm sure we've all heard or read of situations where kids have been taken away from a family only to be returned to the same family and tragedy results. A lot of these cases seem to be in the northern part of the province, however, we possibly we only hear about these cases in the north as they are usually sensational news items and we don't hear of the other everyday cases in the cities and southern towns.

With the police involved in the hostage end of the incident and children involved, Social Services would also be involved. Once again possibly they feel this is just a unique incident and not something that needs their ongoing help. So you most definitely could call and pass along your views of the situation that have transpired over time reiterating your concern for the children. Yes you are anxious for the woman as well, however, she is at least an adult and should have some basic knowledge of how to look after herself. Children are children and just have not developed these skills at young ages.

A third option that could be viewed as a source for assistance may be your local church. However, now a days, churches are not the power base that they were at one time, so I wouldn't really hold out a lot of success with this option. But by just talking to a minister/priest you have unloaded some of your worries and who knows, maybe these people have further options for you to take or that they can take.

After you have done all you can do within your limits, you can rest easy in that you can say you tried. You may not solve the problem, but you have at least alerted the authorities that there is a problem. Of course the problems may reoccur once the male is back out of jail or where ever he gets a holiday and the whole thing may start once again.

The final option would be for either you to move or hope, and if you are that way inclined, pray that the offending people decide to find a new place to live. After all, there is only so much that an individual can and should be expected to do. You can't live the other persons life, you can only help with what you have to offer.

Once again, let's hope that somehow the children get some help so that they can grow up in a loving family situation. Otherwise down the road we'll have more of the same when the children get a bit older and try to mimic their parents.