How wonderful to have live curling on TV for a few weeks. Finally, a sport of some kind to watch. After the women finish their competitions at the Scotties bonspiel the men will be featured in the聽Tim聽Hortons聽Brier, so this will help relieve聽the monotony of nothing to watch for a while.
The village office hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.聽
The curling rink has had the ice taken out as it could not be used because of COVID-19 regulations, but the ice is still in the skating rink, and being used. Now that the weather is nice again, it will likely be used even more. It is indeed a blessing to have this for the children and young adults.
My daughter, Joyce Rowland from Wetaskiwin, Alta., has been out to visit. While she was here she watched and listened to two funerals held in New Zealand. How technology has changed so many things in our lives. I have listened to a couple services, from Big River and McBride, B.C., and found the experience most satisfying and amazing. If I was younger I might take these things for granted, but I am thrilled with every new thing that comes up.聽
A story in the Royal Canadian Geographic magazine featuring Alex Trebek, former host of the popular TV show Jeopardy, told of his work with their organization. He believes聽in geographic education and served as the society鈥檚 honorary president.
The snow geese don鈥檛聽all go far south. Many are wintering at Richmond, B.C. I wonder if they damage crops there, but expect they do.
My son-in-law was visiting in Okotoks, Alta. when he had heart problems, so off to the hospital and a few days later had a stent installed, and is doing fine. He was able to keep in contact almost constantly with his family while in hospital. This made the waiting more endurable, since they couldn鈥檛聽visit him at all.
World Day of Prayer is on March 5, but the service has been available since Feb 15. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, World Day of Prayer is now available online. Type in wicc.org, which will bring up the Women鈥檚 Inter-Church Council of Canada. Once you are on that site you will see World Day of Prayer in their banner. When you click on that you can scroll down and find the one-hour service.
If you are frustrated by the process, phone Trudy Janssens (306-374-0843) and she鈥檒l happy to guide you to make it work.
As of Sept. 1, 2020, Brenda Zurowski has been librarian at the Meota branch of Lakeland Library Region. The library has been open and running using COVID-19 protocols since that time. Visits by patrons have been constant and the library has been relatively busy since re-opening. People are adapting to the new protocols of sanitizing and face masks.
One of the entries for the 鈥淏ook Spine Poetry Contest鈥� that was held last fall was submitted by local patron Kathy.
There are a couple of programs running at this time. Saskatchewan Young Readers鈥� Choice 鈥� The Willow Awards gives patrons a chance to vote on their favourite from list of books in three categories. This ends March 31.
The branch is also sponsoring a winter reading program. The theme is 鈥淗ibernate with Bernie.鈥� This consists of children鈥檚 and teen/adult bingo cards. There is also a colouring page. Each entry is a chance to win a prize. Donations of people food or pet food also qualify as entries.
We have many new magazines for both adults and children. They usually arrive monthly. We also have books, talking books, CDs and DVDs for all ages. We have access to many large print books here and in the province. If we don鈥檛 have the item in-house, we can get it from other libraries in Saskatchewan. As well, we have a collection of indigenous materials. We have a modest collection of books from the different villages and RMs in Saskatchewan.
We will soon be updating our resources for the visually impaired.
We have a public computer for patrons.
The library is open Tuesday and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to12:30 p.m. and Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m.
An account of recent strange weather in Texas has been supplied by a 60-year-old relative and her husband, who live there.
We knew the cold was coming, but reports told us to expect four to eight inches of snow and rolling electrical blackouts that were predicted last 15-45 minutes every few hours.
The聽system came in around midnight Saturday with freezing rain and cold all day Sunday. We lost power around 2 a.m. Monday, but it didn鈥檛 roll. It was just gone.
We woke up Monday morning to a very cold house, but expected the power would come back on soon. But with no response from the utility company by Monday afternoon, we figured we were in for the long haul. Luckily, we had bought two pallets of firewood at a nursery auction last spring. It was still in our shop so not only were we able to keep warm but were able to share with friends who had none. Friends without a fireplace came and spent the day(s) with us, and we added about four extra quilts on our bed and slept soundly that night.
Apparently the wind turbines in west Texas had frozen, and then the generator stations started freezing. Investigations are now going on to find all that went wrong.
Some residential solar panels froze. All the in-ground pools froze, as did the equipment for them. People in Texas don鈥檛 drain their pools in winter, as they are built with safeguards for cold weather. Unfortunately electricity is needed for the safeguards to work.
Most in our area who had a water heater/hot water tank in their attics also had pipes freeze. There were broken pipes and flooding. Ours was in our attached garage, as most are
We know of three families in our area who lost their homes to fire trying to heat with propane heaters or fireplaces. We heard about 70 people lost their lives to hypothermia while waiting for electricity to come back on.
We were able to share some firewood, but were on the receiving end as well. Friends who decided to travel into town (just six miles) always called to see if we needed anything, and we were gifted with at least one delivered meal each day.
The coldest temperatures we know of in our area were -3 F, with a wind chill of -19 F, which translates to -28 C which is very cold for us. 聽A cold temp would typically be between 10-20 F, and seldom would last for more than a day or two.
We are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and I heard today there are still some 20,000 or so without power. Our power was finally restored around 5 p.m. Wednesday, and we are back to normal. Personally we had little damage, but many of our friends and neighbours will be cleaning up for weeks.
Many wonderful people in this area 聽opened their homes to others, delivering food and blankets, firewood, water and whatever was needed. 聽We consider ourselves blessed.
