THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX IS HERE

This column is being written on the day of the September Equinox. In Saskatchewan, or more specifically…Regina, the precise time of the Autumnal Equinox is Monday, September 22 at 8:29 PM Central Standard Time. That is the exact time that “fall” begins.


I suppose that at some point in my life I was taught what the Autumnal Equinox really means, other than the fact that it’s the official end of summer and the start of autumn, but I can’t really recall all of the particulars so I looked it up and it’s kind of interesting. So get ready for a bit of a science lesson here.

“Equinox” literally means “equal night”, giving the impression that the night and day on the equinox are exactly the same length, but that’s not entirely true. It’s close but not exact. On this day in Regina the Sun rose at 6:45am and will set at 6:56pm giving us 12hours and 11 minutes of daylight. That’s about as close as we’ll get to an even split.

On any other day of the year, the Earth’s axis tilts a little away from or towards the Sun. But on the two equinoxes, the Earth’s axis tilts neither away from or towards the Sun. The equinoxes occur the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator-the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator. This happens in March and September every year.

Equinoxes are opposite on either side of the equator, so the autumnal (fall) equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is the spring (vernal) equinox in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. Make sense? Hope so.

So, there you have it, the scientific explanation of when and why the spring and fall seasons officially change.

Mother Nature, on the other hand, doesn’t always comply with these equinox timetables to give us “seasonal” type weather, though. Sometimes, as her schizophrenic personality is wont to do, she will just as easily give us a snowstorm as a heat wave at this time of the year and I’ve seen my share of both. This year they are predicting a heat wave and I couldn’t be happier. Bring it on!

Equinox or no equinox there’s still a lot of stuff that needs to be done this fall. I don’t know about you but I didn’t get all of my summer fun in so I’m hoping for a nice long warm fall. There are still golf balls yet to be hit…numerous times, of course…the non-ending yard chores need to get done and I’d much prefer to do these types of activities while wearing short sleeves as opposed to toques and mitts. But time will tell.

As so many of “the glass is half empty” types were so anxious to point out back on June 22nd that “the days are getting shorter” it is no surprise that we will be losing more and more daylight as we move toward the inevitable December solstice. While we cannot change that fact, I, for one, will be doing my utmost to make the most of these dying daylight hours.

“Ho! For the leaves that eddy down, Crumpled yellow and withered brown, Hither and yonder and up the street And trampled under the passing feet; Swirling, billowing, drifting by, With a whisper soft and rustling sigh, Starting aloft to windy ways, Telling the coming of bonfire days.” Grace Strickler Dawson.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES!

What a difference a year can make. This time last year the farmer’s were trying to figure out where they were going to put all of the grain they were harvesting and this year they’re wondering if there’ll be a market for puffed wheat! Pre-puffed wheat, as it were. Yikes!


I don’t know how they do it. You plan and you plan and you plan and you work and you work and you work but everything you do depends completely on something entirely out of your control. I don’t know about you but I know it’d drive me nuts.

Although my livelihood was never at risk I can relate somewhat to having planned and planned and worked and worked at setting up an event of some kind and then have the weather completely spoil the day. Its frustration personified.

Then again…so what…big deal, your ball tournament or golf tournament or your family picnic was a little muddy and chilly but you can still slug through it and you can still have fun if you make the most of it but I’m not so sure how much fun a farmer would be having these days. Sorry if I’m rubbing salt in your wounds but I’ve got to talk about something, don’t I?

I had worked in the construction/building supply industry for many years and the weather plays a huge part in determining what task would be performed on any given day in that business, too, but, if you’re busy enough, there was always something productive that you could do until the weather turned favourable enough to get the work done.

Speaking of differences between years, I guess last year the golf course had to pay to get water pumped ONTO the course and this year you’d be hard pressed to hit a ball anywhere out there that didn’t send up a splash. And I’m not talking about the four big ponds that I routinely hit my shots into either. I’m talking…ANYWHERE! I’ve been golfing out there ever since the first ball was hit and I cannot recall that much water lying around…ever!

I guess this is why: I did a quick check of the old Government of Canada Daily Climate Data Report and the accumulated millimeters of rainfall in August 2014 for the Regina area saw 134.8mm of rainfall compared to 23.5mm in 2013. I know! To top it off 13.4mm of the 23.5mm last year fell in one day, too. No wonder there’s water laying everywhere and our sump pump is still doing double time.

Keep in mind that we’re still in Saskatchewan and any kind of weather can happen here at any time. The one thing about the weather in Saskatchewan is that it is consistently inconsistent. Saskatchewan weather years are like snowflakes…no two are ever the same.

Next year will be next year but we won’t have to deal with that until next year, will we? What will it be then? More moisture? Less? There is one thing that it will obviously be…and that is…different.

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”-John Ruskin (1819-1900).

SINCE MAY LONG WEEKEND??!! REALLY?

Here it is the 10th of September and I haven't had an entry on this site since May Long Weekend! How embarrassing!  Sorry about that.
Anyway, if anyone has tuned in recently I will tell you that I just posted about 15 columns that I wrote between that last posting in May and now.
I will strive to do better. You can't be a blogger if you don't blog.

EMILY MOVES TO KELOWNA.

           There were a lot of mixed emotions when we pulled out of Regina on the morning of August 30^th. We were heading off to beautiful British Columbia and we were excited, nervous, happy and sad all at the same time. You see, we were moving our youngest daughter, Emily, to her new home in Kelowna and while we were happy she was going to further her education and enhance her Marketing Analyst career we were sad that it was going to be two provinces away. Sometimes, though, you’ve got to take the good with the bad.

            I had been out to the Left Coast only once a long, long time ago, when I was nine-years-old, and Deb had never been further into the Rockies than the Frank Slide site so we were pretty excited about the site-seeing and somewhat nervous about the mountain driving.

            Not so long ago Emily had driven to the coast and she is a competent and confident driver and was totally comfortable driving through the mountains. I, on the other hand, didn’t really know what to expect and I was just hopeful that I didn’t become part of the scenery while looking at it. So we headed out with me in one vehicle and Emily and Deb in Em’s car. Luckily, arrangements had been made for the largest amount of her belongings to arrive in Kelowna a day or two after we did so we didn’t have to pull a trailer or U-haul, or anything, so that was a blessing.

            We got off to an interesting start as we had picked Calgary as our first overnight stop and we booked a room online at “Calgary’s newest and hippest” hotel-Aloft. It was easily accessible off of Highway #1, affordable and looked pretty cool. It was a little disconcerting, though, when we pulled into the parking lot on Saturday night and it looked like we’d arrived at a “Ladies of the Evening” convention or a “Stripper’s Are Us” outlet. It was only a pre-University private pool party going on and it didn’t affect our stay too much. Debbie and Emily strongly suggested that I stick to “Nature’s Natural Wonders” for sightseeing on the rest of the trip, though. An argument could be made about the definition of “natural” but let’s not go there, shall we?

            The whole trip covered over 3200 kilometers of travel and the worst driving conditions we experienced were between Calgary and Canmore. Apparently, Labour Day Long Weekend Sunday could possibly be one of the worst times to pick to drive that piece of the Trans Canada Highway. It was side-by-side, bumper-to-bumper 130kms/hour for as far as the eye could see on the highway. The good news is that it made driving the rest of the 3000-odd kilometers a lot less nerve-racking.

            When they say “Beautiful” British Columbia they really mean it. We haven’t said “wow” that many times in a week for a long, long time. We were also blessed with great weather and the only non-sunny day happened to be the day that Bobby “Bouche” Byrnell arranged a helicopter ride for us over Shuswap Lake while we were visiting him, Bridgette and the girls in Scotch Creek. The description of that helicopter ride is a whole article in itself. Again…WOW!

            The Okanogan Valley runs from Valemount in the north of the valley to Osoyoos in the south. The scenery is some of the most majestic and beautiful in the world. The vineyards, orchards and resorts make it a must-see destination. We drove in the beauty, we walked in the beauty, we golfed in the beauty, we flew in the beauty and we sat and stared at the beauty.

            We travelled #1 highway out and #3 highway back in an attempt to make the most out of the limited time we had allowed ourselves. We packed a lot of activity into those seven days and we have already begun planning a return trip with more time penciled in to explore a lot of sites that we didn’t make time for this go around.

            As we watched the mountain beauty shrink in the rearview mirror there were no mixed emotions this time. There was only one…sadness. We were leaving the majestic, awesome beauty that is B.C and, more importantly, our daughter in her new surroundings in Kelowna. She’s in great hands, though, with her life-long best friend, Bethany Hilderman, living there, too, and her old Moose Jaw roommate sharing the living arrangements again but, still, we came home without her and that wasn’t an easy thing to do. Then again, on the other hand, it gives us the best reason to make a return trip.

            “The mountains are calling and I must go.”-John Muir-Scottish naturalist and preservationist (1838-1914).

"MY SUMMER VACATION"

             It’s been a long, long time since I was in school but I still remember one of the first class assignments of the new school year was to write an essay on “My Summer Vacation”.

The activities changed from year to year as I grew older, from going to Summer Camp and family vacations to hanging out at Kenosee Lake and playing football in the Little Schoolyard.

Of course, there were many of the activities that didn’t change like swimming and playing baseball and golfing, which I’ve been doing for years and years and years and I still got to do a lot of those activities again this summer in between the rains.

Reporting the types of activities in a school report also changed over time as some things you just didn’t want to tell your teacher that you or your peers did over the summer break. You know, changing names to protect the guilty and such. It’s one thing to tell everyone about playing hide-‘n-seek or kick the can or visiting Uncle Bill’s but it’s another to tell them about crab apple snitching, garden raiding or sneaking smokes. Some things are best left unsaid.

            As we age the priorities change and the days of care-free running and adventure seeking have morphed into home improvement chores and yard-work, which can sometimes become adventures, too, but they do not nearly have the appeal of one’s childhood and teen years’ adventures. There is, however, a certain amount of satisfaction that can be gained through hard work giving the relaxation and fun time more meaning.

            Now, we didn’t go zip-lining, or kayaking, or anything, but we packed a lot of fun time in over the last few months. There were two family reunions, a wedding, baseball provincials in Weyburn, with the Eden Valley Senators, a soaking wet and thoroughly enjoyable Seed Hawk golf tournament and our daughter Meghan camped here for two weeks while her son Treyton (5) and daughter Ava (2) were enrolled in swimming lessons.

            We really enjoyed watching the two little ones improve their swimming skills over the two weeks of lessons. And…I got to catch my grandson Treyton’s first ever jump off the diving board! So cool.

            The weekly Men’s and Ladies’ Nights at the Kingswood Golf Club were looked forward to with great anticipation with an end result of a mixed bag of exasperation, frustration and exhilaration. Good times, good times.

It wasn’t all fun ‘n games, though. There was a bit of a shaky start to the summer as we were inundated with a scary amount of rain over the July long weekend. We were this close to declaring an emergency in town and many communities in our area were devastated. Some more than once.

I know we had lots of water lying around our yard for a day or two but nothing compared to the flooding in the chain of lakes along the QuAppelle Valley. I know many people who were greatly affected by that flooding so I think, all in all, Kipling didn’t fair so bad through the stormy season.

For me, this busy, busy summer was filled with time well-spent. I guess it is what you make it, though, and if you try, just a little bit, you can make the very best of the too-short season and fill it with as many memories as you can.

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”-Dr. Seuss.

AAAAAHHHHH...LABOUR DAY WEEKEND...ALREADY!

           I am going to rehash an old column for you again this week. My apologies, Dear Reader, but this year’s summer has been as busy as or busier than any in recent memory. This past month has been particularly crazy with activities at our household and I am feeling a little time-crunched, so I going to republish the Labour Day column that I wrote last year. Here you go.

            Once again, the Labour Day Weekend is upon us so the time has come, (ALREADY), for me to do my annual “the summer is over” whiny schtick. Any of you regular readers of this column will be all too familiar with my love of summer and hatred of its ending but I won’t bore you with any more details than that this time around. For a detailed view of my humble opinion on the matter you can go to my blog site: http://pnhubbard.blogspot.com/ and search out last year’s write-up and save us both some time. Thanks.

            The summer of 2013 will actually end on September 21^st but for all intents and purposes the Labour Day Weekend will signify the unofficial and symbolic end to the summer season. According to traditions of old, after this weekend it’s time to put away the white outfits and break out the backpacks and book-bags. But before that happens you should hit the cottage, the lake, the swimming pool, the water-slides and the vacations spots one more time before getting back to “normal”. Yes, like it or not, summer has passed us by one more time. There might still be some “summer-like” weather conditions for a while but once the calendar flips to September, boy, she’s all downhill from there. For summer lovers, that is.

            If the last long weekend of the hot season is summer’s last gasp…why is it called Labour Day? Funny you should ask…I was just wondering the same thing.

            According to my research Labour Day has been celebrated here in Canada on the first Monday of September since the late 1800’s. The origins of Labour Day can be traced back to December of 1872 when a parade was staged in support of the Toronto Typographical Union’s strike for a 58-hour work-week. At that time many workers were working at least twelve hours a day. The Toronto Trades Assembly called its twenty-seven unions to demonstrate in support of the Typographical Union who had been on strike since March 25^th.

            George Brown, Canadian politician and editor of the Toronto Globe, hit back at his striking employees pressing police to charge the Typographical Union with “conspiracy”. Although the laws criminalizing union activity were outdated and had already been abolished in Great Britain, they were still on the books in Canada and police arrested twenty-four leaders of the Typographical Union.

Labour leaders decided to call another demonstration on September 3^rd to protest the arrests. Seven unions marched in Ottawa prompting a promise by Canadian Prime Minister, and Brown’s political foe, Sir John A. MacDonald, to repeal the “barbarous” anti-union laws. Parliament passed the Trade Union Act the following June.

The parades in support of the printer’s strike became a yearly event. After attending one of these labour festivals in Toronto, United States labour leader, Peter J. McGuire went back to New York and established the first U.S. Labour Day on September 5^th, 1882. It took a while, but in July of 1894 the Conservative government of Prime Minister Sir John Thompson officially made Labour Day a national holiday.

I am not promoting this column as a pro-union statement but, historically and factually, without the sacrifices of past union labourers and leaders there would be few workers’ rights today. So while you float around the pool or lounge on your cottage deck or take in the Labour Day Classic you could give a little silent thank you to the many people whose vision and sacrifices have made it possible for so many workers to enjoy weekends, (long and short), a standard 40-hour work week, overtime, coffee and lunch breaks, paid vacation, sick leave, minimum wage, maternity leave, Child Labour Laws, Occupational Health and Safety, Worker’s Compensation, pensions, wrongful termination laws…

“Without labour nothing prospers.”-Sophocles.

A LITTLE BIT OF LOWELL AND ROSE HUBBARD'S FAMILY HISTORY

          Lowell and Rose Hubbard spent the full decade of the 1970’s in Kipling and this community was always near and dear to their hearts. Mom’s family had farmed here in the 1920’s and 30’s so it was a bit of a home coming for Mom when Dad accepted the position as the Minister of the United Church of Canada’s Kipling/Windthorst Pastoral Charge in the spring of 1970. Dad, Mom and the three youngest of their nine children, Gordon, Perry and Shelly moved into the Manse house in Kipling on a scorching hot July 1^st day in 1970.

            As coincidence would have it, when Dad and Mom came to Kipling for the job interview and the acceptance of the position, the head of the Official Church Board was D. A. (Alex) Cunningham who happened to live in a big house located at 617 Main Street in Kipling. While Dad and D.A. went to the church to meet with the other board members Mom and Mrs. Cunningham, May, stayed back at the house visiting and May and D.A. hosted a celebratory supper for Dad and Mom at their residence later that evening. Debbie and I have lived in that exact house for the past twenty-one years!

Mom passed on to me the correspondence letters between Dad and D.A. that led to Dad and Mom’s decision to accept the Kipling/Windthorst Pastoral Charge offer and I still have Dad’s copy of the contract that he and the church members signed in the spring of 1970.

            Dad ministered here until the fall of 1980 and during that decade they made many life-long friends and they continued to visit and stay in touch with the community until their deaths, Dad on June 21^st, 1990 and Mom on June 21^st, 2013. Yes, that’s right, the very same day of the year, their favourite day of the year, by the way…the first day of summer!

            Over the years, after they left Kipling in 1980, returning to Kipling was easy for them as brother Gordie married a Kipling girl, Val Bousfield, and Gord was Kipling’s Town Administrator for a number of years in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Our sister Margo married Kipling boy, Mark Krecsy, and they lived in Kipling for a number of years of years, too, in the 80’s and 90’s. I married a Windthorst girl, Debbie Lewis, and we moved back to Kipling in 1985 and have been here ever since allowing Mom and Dad to keep their ties to the community that they loved with many, many visits here.

            As our ninety-three-year-old mother’s health began to fail in the late spring of 2013 she called her children to her home in Medicine Hat, where she had been residing for the previous twenty years, and requested that her children and their children and their children, some seventy-plus, (and growing yearly), direct decedents meet annually for a family reunion. We readily obliged and, appropriately, Kipling was the chosen site for the very first Lowell and Rose Hubbard Family Reunion, (without Dad or Mom), on August 15^th, 16^th and 17^th 2014.

             So sixty-one members of the family converged on the Town of Kipling this past weekend and we had a blast. Many of the people have been here many times and some hadn’t been here for years so it was really special for them to see what a great little community we have and how much it has changed and grown over past forty-four years.

Lowell and Rose Hubbard’s family will meet again next year in a new host community but the memories that we made this past weekend in Kipling will last forever.

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”- Michael J. Fox (1961-).