FALL COLORS

       There have been a number of excellent photos on leaves recently. It's very appropriate because of the fall season.

        These photos reminded me of some school activities about 75 years ago.

        I had an excellent teacher for grades 3,4 and 5. She was far ahead of her time when it came to excellent learning projects. One of them was on leaves. 

       The whole class of 17 from gr one to nine would spend an hour or two wondering around off the schoolyard collecting leaves for a project. So in this little field trip we observed many different plants. She didn't know the names but we observed plants. 

      I think my technique for this has weakened but I hope you can see the outline of a leaf. 

      When we got back to the classroom we chose leaves to make a tracing with our pencils. Of course, we had to arrange the leaves in an interesting manner. Then she displayed our works. We did not have a bulletin board and I don't think scotch tape had been invented yet. Thumb tacks were used to attach our work to the wall. 

      So my teacher evaluation hat says that she could teach many things with just one item. Every moment to her was a teachable moment. 

MY STREET THIS WEEK

      

 

THE COMING OF FALL

     The coming of fall is a mixed experience for me. There are some good things and some bad things all in due time. We had very warm weather and then in two days it turned cold and we had light frosts. 

     I have anxiety when fall is on the way. Fall means freezing. Freezing of plants. We talk about a killing frost. That means that most plant activity is over. I worry about that first frost. I always have plants that I want another week or 10 days out of. 

    Once that killing frost is over , the anxiety is gone. I can now enjoy fall with all it's color and wonderful smells. 

    The sun is paler as it moves deeper south. 

    I like fall activities. I like cleaning up my yard with all the plants that need to be taken care of. Regular summer gardening activities are over.

    Fall is a beautiful season with awesome color. 

    I liked fall on the farm. I liked harvesting , running combines and  hauling grain. Harvesting took a long time as there had to be dry conditions. I liked running the tractor doing the fall field work. I also got to stay out of school for about 6 weeks.

     I phoned my 83 year old brother about 10 days ago and he was out running a combine for one of his sons. I phoned him first and there was no answer. He knew I was calling but he couldn't see in the dark to  press the right buttons. 

e SUPERVISION OF CHILDREN

     My favorite CBC morning show had a segment about supervising your children electronically. I knew that development in this field was on going so it shouldn't have surprised me at how highly developed supervising children by internet has come. 

     So your kid has a phone and daddy has the supervisory program and away we go. You know where the kid is at all times and if he/she is not where they're supposed to be then all hell breaks loose. 

     So with this program you know where the kid is in the school. You know if he/she is in the right classroom. You know if he/she is at  Freddie's house and not George's house. You know if the child is walking home and exactly where he/she is. 

    So the question is , is this much supervision necessary? Is this much supervision good for the child? Does this take away the good old discussion with parents about responsibility? Does this give kids a chance to learn to be independent? When do you stop following little Johnny? 

     There must be some way around this rigid supervision and trust me kids will find it. So you've given the kid an opportunity to practice being devious. 

     My kids grew up in the seventies and were free range kids. They look back at the fun they had and the responsibilities they learned. 

      I grew up in the 40's on a farm  with very little supervision. We were active all day and had many learning experiences. 

     I'll admit that I was a devious little fellow. That characteristic in me is whirling around to see how I could beat the system. 

     When my brother and I were growing up on the farm we quite often roved around the country in some Dad's car. Dad got tired of us coming home late. One day he said, " If your not home by ten PM, I'll put a knife in the door and you can't get in the house." We'd lost the key to the house door so a knife was used. 

      My brother carefully left his bedroom window open above the garage roof. Easy , peasy. He got in the house. I just went to the door and found that it was not locked. 

     So there is much more to think about with electronic supervision and raising children.

MY FAVORITE RANT

       I have ranted before about call centers and their poor service. It seems like the wait time for your call answer gets longer and longer.

      Today the micro manager was waiting for an hour and 20minutes.

      That did it. Something has to be done. We can't spend that much of our lives waiting for call centers to answer.

      So here's my suggestion. Call centers have to be hit in the pocket book so that it hurts.

     My suggestion is that regulations should be made governing call centers. Give them 5 minutes to answer a call. If it takes them longer than 5 to answer then they pay for every minute past 5. So charge them so much a minute for time past 5 minutes.  A dollar a minute ? It would have cost them $75.00 for being slow this afternoon. As you can see there are several different options for a scheme like this. 

     We  all complain about call centers but do nothing about it. So lets get loud and suggest some solutions. 

TIME AWAY

      I've been away for a few days. I admit that I have not read blogs or commented. 

       I had the mother of all nose bleeds on Thursday  morning. I was off to the bathroom about 1 AM and felt a drip fall from my nose. When I got to the bathroom and got the light on my hand had lots of blood on it. I tried to stop it and saw that the bleeding was continuing very rapidly. I called the Micro Manager for help. We quickly decided we had to call the ambulance.

    The paramedic tried pinching the nostril and using a gauze plug. Nothing helped. 

    They decided it was emergency for me. So out I went out  to the drive way in sock feet and boxers. The paramedic pinched my nose all the way to the hospital and while I was waiting for a bed. Then they put a clamp on my nose which stopped the bleeding but didn't cure things. 

     About 4 AM they inserted an inflatable plug. It wasn't nice but stopped the blood flow. 

    I was released  about 10AM. I didn't have glasses or hearing aids. I didn't have shoes. The micro manager sent up a shirt, pants and jacket. I couldn't get the shirt over my head. So I was on my way home with no shoes or shirt. 

    So it was a long sleepless confusing night.

    I went back Sat AM  and got the packing out and fortunately the bleeding had stopped. It was a treat that a  former student was in the ER and looked after me.

    So it was a miserable time with lack of sleep, worry, loss of blood and a darn hard hospital bed to lie on for 10 hours. 

   Aren't you lucky that I'm not showing icky photos? 

    

MANNERLY KIDS

      I've been pleasantly surprised lately be some very mannerly kids. It takes kids a while to get their mannerly skills polished up. Some of them never make it. For that matter many adults do not have the mannerly skills when dealing with others. 

     A woman introduced one of her sons to me and he said, "Pleased to meet you Red." I was very pleased to hear his reply and wondered where it came from. I will find out.

   Last night an eight or nine year old girl road by me on her bike . She greeted me and then said, "Have a nice evening." It felt special and again I wondered what the parent had done so that this child was so mannerly. 

   Tonight I went to a bench to get something out of my shoe. An Asian kid was there and greeted me. As I went to leave he said, "Have a nice evening sir."

    These replies from young people impress me and I hope it's a sign that parents are teaching good behavior and manners. Kids with these skills have much more confidence in themselves and we have fewer problems in society.

I DID IT!

      As most of you know I quite often eat at the local casino. The food is good and the price is right. I don't gamble. As time goes by we've met others who play the same game. Today , one of my former students, who is a senior had lunch with us. Calvin and I filled out the card for the seniors Wednesday draw of $500.00. We have won the senior draw three times so it pays for some meals.

     Three weeks ago the Micro Manager won the senior draw. We had also been filling in free rickets for a shopping trip. The shopping spree was worth $500.00 but what I didn't know it that there were 40 smaller prizes with the draw. So after they phoned the micro Manager I got a phone call telling me that I won a set of ear buds. 

    So now , what do I do with the ear buds. You can't just stick them in your ears and listen to music. Charging has to be done. The case is charged and the case charges the ear buds. So I found that out by trial and error. I had to pair the ear buds with blue tooth. There are voice prompts which I couldn't really hear. 

    I got the ear buds paired but they kept going off and on. I repaired them. Through that operation I found out that I was putting my fingers over the LEDs and was accidentally turning things off and on. 

    So once I had all these things sorted out, I was ready to listen to music on you tube. 

    It takes many mistakes for me to get it right. 

IT FINALLY HAPPENED

       When I was raising my kids we did not have a pet in the house or out of the house.

      So you guessed it. When the kids went out on their own they got dogs that lived with them in the house. 

     My son's first dog was a beagle and that was a challenge. His second dog was a beautiful calm lab. 

     My daughter's first dog was a spunky mini schnauzer. It kept you entertained all day. Her latest dog is of a mysterious pedigree but it's small.

     Small dogs seem to like chasing squirrels. The Schnauzer never missed chasing a squirrel. Her present dog also never misses an opportunity to chase squirrels. 

    A few days ago my daughter was sitting in the porch to keep cool. The dog was with them. My daughter saw a squirrel so tried to alert the dog to the presence of the squirrel. The dog beat it around the house and back completely missing the presence of the squirrel. . Okay my daughter tried again to show the squirrel and this time the dog caught on and chased the squirrel. Wonder of wonders the dog caught the squirrel. My daughter was surprised and horrified that the little squirrel had been caught. The dog had a very surprised look and let the squirrel go much to my daughter's relief. 

    So dog and owner were surprised that it finally happened that the dog caught a squirrel. 

    I wonder if the dog will keep chasing squirrels?