A GUEST SEES MORE IN AN HOUR THAN A HOST SEES IN A YEAR

Summer officially started here in Saskatchewan on Wednesday June 20th at 5:09 p.m. CST. Coincidently, that was almost the exact moment when the rains stopped around here. After a completely rain-soaked spring, Environment Canada and the good Old Farmer’s Almanac are predicting a hot and dry summer here on the Prairies. I say bring it on. And, yes, I will now do my annual rant to all of you cold-weather, heat-hating Canadians who crank on the A/C and whine and whine about the heat as soon as the thermometer hits 20 degrees Celsius, or something; c’mon now, after being house-bound by winter and rain for the past too many months can’t we enjoy a few days of good ol’ hot weather to make up for it? Hmmm? Is that too much to ask?

Many factors have come in to play, the unfavourable weather being just one of them, as to why many of the “Honey Do” items have been put off and put off and put off around the Hubbard household over an extended period of time. My back issues were certainly a factor and according to the medical profession numbness and shooting pains in the shinbone aren’t THAT worrisome and if I’m not losing control of my bowels, or anything, which must be the standard or yardstick, if you will, that they use to measure how bad things are, then, you know, suck it up Buttercup, thing’s could be so much worse…blah, blah, blah…never mind, that’s a whole other story and it’s not really where I was headed with this column. Suffice it to say things have fallen a little behind around here so Deb and I booked a couple of days off in an effort to get some things done and maybe we can stroke some of these items off of the list before it swallows up our whole summer.

You know, it’s funny how you can walk by something every day and you don’t really take notice of what you are seeing. Take our house for instance. There was a green chain-link fence bordering the front of our property with the Town of Kipling’s sidewalk and it had been there for a long, long time and its best days passed a while ago so this fence removal has been on our job list for quite some time now. It was a struggle but the fence was removed and we couldn’t believe how much it improved the look of the place and of course it left us wondering why we hadn’t done this a long time ago. Ditto the front step. You walk up the stairs everyday with your mind on a hundred other things and you look but you don’t really see. It’s amazing how much some spit, polish and a bit of elbow grease can do when you put your mind to it.

In my mind, living in a ninety-three-year-old Main Street Saskatchewan heritage property comes with some added responsibilities and obligations. Sure, you have your own personal pride in your home and you want to make it nice, but there is also the added desire to pay homage to the original home builder and the families who have made this house their home, too, and it never hurts to take a step back and look at things from someone else’s perspective to really see what your looking at.

“A guest sees more in an hour than a host sees in a year,”-Polish Proverb.