Here we are starting out with such a nice bright and clear morning. A nice day to be alive. Those frosty mornings seem to have cleared up the weather although things are very dry.

Folks who draw water from our lakes especially Francois are concerned about their water lines when winter comes. A party told me their water line is right out of the lake and laying up on the beach. So the first cold snap the water line is going to freeze.

That鈥檚 bad news for lots of home owners along the lakes. I think this is the lowest I have seen Francois Lake. It would be very interesting if one could tell just how much water that鈥檚 drawn out every 24 hours including the Endako Mine.

I was reading an article the other day and it stated the shortness of fresh water is facing our world today.

Water was always a problem in Saskatchewan in my growing up years we were always short.

Although we had about a mile of the Eyehill creek going through our place during the big dry as they called it, the creek almost dried up. We had three wells and they were having a hard time to keep up. We were fortunate to have the Eyehill creek going through the farm.

When the rains came and they did thank heavens for that. Most all of the farms homes had hand dug wells some were good and some not but it was the lifeblood of a place if you had a good well. Hand digging a well was hard work and could be dangerous.

One story that was very sad the folks had almost finished the well and it was a deep one. They were using a pulley at the well top with a long rope on a big bucket and brought up to the top with a horse. This worked good but a bad accident happened. One of the sons was filling the bucket with dirt from the well and one son was handling the horse and dumping the bucket of dirt.

The horse started to back up and fell down the well and killed the boy in the well. Reading between the lines in the story the folks sold and left the country.

There were three hand dug wells on our home place and one on uncle Will鈥檚 place that dad owned after his bother鈥檚 death. Things were improving with a well drilling outfit moving in.

Last time when I visited the old place they have a full running drilled well, no more using the old wells.

Nice card

It is sure a pleasure to get letters, cards or phone call from old friends. I just got a nice card and a note from Margaret Cowan Hickey. Really made my day. She has made her home in the lower mainland.

Margaret spent the greater part of her life at Colleymount where she raised her family. Her husband Everad Hickey had the mail run to the post offices at west Francois Lake as well as ranched. I very often look took his run after the family moved to Colleymount to ranch. I really enjoyed it, such nice folks. Made my day.

In our first years in the store and post office, this was in 1941 now so many years ago, there was very few cars but lots of horses and wagons. So we had a hitching rail next to Mother鈥檚 flower garden. The rail was always well used. Both day and night. This one morning Jim Jeffrey tied his team of horses up to the rail. They were a lovely big team, the mare and her grown son.

At the same time a Colleymount resident called John Haragonic had just bought a big huge car and he was learning to drive. John was backing up to park and he backed into the back of Jim鈥檚 wagon and pushed the team into the hitching rail breaking off the main post. He then pulled his car ahead and then he came back a second time full bore pushed the wagon and the team through the rail, through mother鈥檚 fence and into her flower garden. What a mess this turned out to be. A guy in the store drove John鈥檚 car out.

Fences all over broken off and mother鈥檚 flowers. And the corner of the wagon pushed in the back of John鈥檚 nice car. John drove the car home and in the future got Edward Showlander to do his driving most of the time. Dad and I had to put up the fences again. Not too long after cars started to take the place of the teams. We still kept the good old hitching rail up as the were still a number of saddle horses coming in with shoppers for mail and groceries.

Weather

Last night I turned on the TV and got a station that was new to me. It gave a long range weather forecast for U.S.A. and Canada. The U.S.A. is going to get one of the worst winters they have ever had. Bad storms and cold. Canada is right behind them. Eastern Canada will be hit the worst. Cheerful news isn鈥檛 it. Time will tell. We sure do need the snow for our lakes. Also they were showing that terrible fire they are having in the U.S.A. We know about fires here in B.C. after this summer.

School is in

The good news is school will be back again when this news gets out. Boy there sure will be some catching up to be done. Everyone will have to help get all these kids back into school. I know what it is like to get behind in school.

An epidemic of typhoid fever hit our district and Peter and Ruth went down first then I got it. We lost Ruth and brother Peter was given up one night but a miracle saved his life. Evesham was hit bad. We were all in the hospital about a month. Ruth went the first week. Brother Peter did die that night but the two doctors could not believe he had come back again. Ask him sometimes and he will tell you how it feels. Something to think on.

Thought for the day

If we only have five mints left to say all the things we wanted to say every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them.

Always remember God loves you a great deal and so do I.