photos

to begin with i am computer illiterate, well almost. i sometimes amaze myself with my ability to stumble on things. since i have never taken a computer course , i do okay most times. but i am stumped at trying to figure out how to put photos on my blog.
i have gone to the help desk. i have tried to copy and paste.i have read and reread blogspot's" how to post your photo on your blog". none of it has been successful. this morning i wasted an hour trying. and i thought i had succeeded by pasting the 'url 'in the space provided in 'edit your profile' i was so excited , and then deflated to have a little yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in the center , tell me that the 'url 'contained some illegal content. what had i done!
god knows i may have the CIA at my doorstep in a few moments, perhaps a swat team from HOMELAND SECURITY.
i even went to the extreme of reducing the window of my blog and the window of my photos and tried to drag the photo across the great divide to my blog. there was a "poof" and my blog disappeared. all i was left with was my shrunken photo.
so as a result the lone reader of my blog won't be able to see a picture of my front door in winter. so i'll describe it to her. it's a cherry red, with a lovely christmas wreath dusted with snow. the door is in a corner of the house which faces the road. the house is white with dark brown trim. there is an over hang kind of porch. you get the drift. and it is true a picture is worth a thousand words. if i used a thousand words to describe my front entrance, you would never see it as it really is..........
so unless i figure out how to put the photo on my blog, you will just have to come and see it for yourself (in winter of course, on a very stormy day in january) i will have the kettle on ...........

first day of school

my grandson started school this week. he was so proud, so brave, so hopeful , so grown up. he was fairly bursting with enthusiasm. i felt a little sad, seeing him set forth on that path. it's like giving him over to the outside world- outside his immediate family and neighbourhood.on my walk home after the photo shoot, i reflected on the next big occassion on this path would be 13 years from now when it would be his graduation. i know from experience how fast that time goes.
i want for him an experience far different from mine. my first day of school started like his full of hope and expectation. my mother accompanied me to school. there were about 40 students in my class.my memory is that i was standing by the teacher's desk, when i realized my mother was not beside me. i looked towards the door , only to see her leaving. i started to cry and miss senna whacked me across my knuckles with a wooded ruler. i had never been hit ! i went into shock. here i was ,a painfully shy six year old who had a great attachment to my mother, left alone with this monster ! it traumatized me and still does. not much wonder i've carried a lifetime fear of authority.
i was a very bright child. i loved reading, had a wonderous curiousity and an insatiable appetite for learning. what had i done to deserve such brutality?
this same teacher taught me again in grade 8. her brutish ways hadn't changed.
one lovely fall (or was it spring) day, my best friend and i played hookey. we spent the afternoon at my house trying on bathing suits. the next day the teacher being suspicous that we were both off at the same time , requested a note from our parents explaining our absence. my mother was kind enough to comply event though she was not condoning my action. miss senna was not happy with the note and strapped me in front of the entire class. i don't recall if she strapped my best friend.
what was it with this woman? i've never been able to figure it out. perhaps abuse has no logic. it's just sadistic.
i did have happier days in school . i loved my grade 4 teacher. miss coffey. unlike my first three teachers she was young and married. she got married the year she taught us, she invited the whole class to her wedding. it was beautiful as was she.
later on in high school we had her sister, who had been a nun. she didn't have the same kind of personality. although she was a wonderful teacher, she was more guarded ,probably out of necessity,as we had another young good looking female teacher miss fahey, who was given such a hard time by the young bucks, that she eventually left teaching period. too bad, as i think in high school you need young energetic teachers.
my youngest daughter is a high school teacher. i admire her so much. she is so enthusiastic and loves teaching. i taught school also. but you couldn't pay me enough to walk into a high school classroom.my memory of what happened to miss fahey would give me the horrors.
as a parent i felt a bit of a failure in not being able to protect my children from bad experiences . they had teachers who should not have been allowed around children , much less in charge of them for 6 hours a day.
i'm not sure i agree with mandatory education. i am sure our education system needs a complete overhauling. it needs to be dismantled and rebuilt .
it truly needs to be child centred. not just lip service to that notion.
firstly , in terms of physical environment, children need sunshine, fresh air, good food, flowers, grass , trees . so we need to start with tearing down our drab brick buildings with small windows that don't open. we need to build schools that are organic on sites that have beautiful views, that inspire. wooden buildings or other materials which make the structure seem as though it grew out of the place. harmony. beauty. awesome.
secondly, fun, music, play, laughter, colour, art. dance......... all the good joyous activites that make us human, happily human.
gardens, pets, bikes, skate boards, and anything that promotes physical activity.
programming: anything and everything is a subject for learning . listen to what children want to learn. LISTEN to children truly LISTEN. as adults we like to preach, lecture and teach. true learning is a sharing of what we are excited about. when a child comes to you excited about something, we need to STOP and LISTEN. i stress this as i really believe we don't hear what young people are saying or thinking. we need to be mindful of ' the other' and be present for them. this act tells them they are important and what they think matters and they have good ideas that will change the world for the better.
throw the notion of "discipline" out the wndow. the old fashion idea of discipline. i am learning in my sixtieth year that discipline is not a bad thing. it doesn't mean punishment, deprivation, abuse. that discipline has more to do with boundries, respect and focus. i over eat. my appetite knows no boundries. i have to teach it to recognize fullness and satisfaction. i need to respect my body and learn to say "no" to that second piece of cake. respect garners respect.
what did miss senna teach me in her abusive behavior to me? she taught me to fear authority, to keep my mouth shut, learning to be invisible is more important that showing off what you have learned. keep your head down and keep ducking.
teachers should be carefully screened and monitored. we do not want people caring for our children, who do not love them with a passion and utter devotion to guiding them to be happy, kind , industrious, honest, loving human beings. learning is a lifetime process.it is a journey. it doesn't just belong to schools. a great teacher will inspire and appetite and love of learning. a life long gift that never ends.
as my grandchildren embark on their journey away from we who love them, i pray that they never feel less loved than they are in their homes. and that those who have them in their care, remember they are precious and like flowers they need sunshine, water and fresh air.

labour day

actually its the day after labour day. but i formulated this topic yesterday and continued to labour today.
it's pickling time! yesterday i picked squashberries out in back of my garden. my house is built on a steep incline, so i had to literally hang from the branches to stable myself enough to pick. i found the tree last year and was delighted. squash berry jelly is a newfoundland delicacy. i hadn't had it for years.
my young neighbour "matthew", who tells me he is "free" and his grandmother were my audience. we chatted while i picked. matthew kept an eye on the dogs and warned me when the bee was going to bite me.
his nanny spotted and apple tree laden with apples further down the hill. she scampered down the hill to see if she could get some. she came back empty handed but vowed she'd get her husband to take the ladder down and pick some after he finished watching "the story".
an hour later matthew and his nanny dropped by with a bag of apples. so i set to work. apple jelly, squash berry jelly, partridgeberry jam and zucchini mustard pickles. it was a wonderful day. it reminded me of my mother's kitchen . coming home from school on a bright fall day. opening the door and almost being blown away by the pungent aroma of pickle spice, hot vinigar and molten parrafin wax. my mom was not a neat person. she loved to be outdoors in her garden. but she also loved to make pickles. chow-chow, bread and butter pickles, pickled beets, lady astor pickles and her favourite dill pickles. all made with the fruits of her garden. the whole kitchen would have transformed into a pickle factory and labratory. she had a note book in which she would register each bottle by date and type and anything noteworthy about her technique. the kitchen table was covered with cucumbers, beets, green tomatoes, scraps of recipes. pots on the stove boiling over, some with empty jars and lids , the wax melting in a double boiler, vinigar andsugar with cloves , peppercorns, bayleaves,garlic and dill simmering away. the floor was a skating rink of spilled wax.
she would stuff the vegetables in the jar, not nice clean mason jars, but the recycled mayonaise, jam jars , mustard jars and anything that had a cover. the covers were not the original covers. i made a game out of trying to match the lids with the jars, desparately seeking order in my chaotic childhood. after the veggies were ready she would pour the hot spicy, sugary vinigar over the top. i loved to see it trail down through the chunks of cucumbers, beets or tomatoes. once the liquid had settled , she would pour the hot wax over the top of all with peaks of picles peeping out she would add a little melted parrafin in the lid. then cover was installed, the wax dripping down over the sides in droplets , solidifying on the way . she would mark the code on the cover and in the pickle registery and the hot bottles would be placed on the cellar steps. ready to be stored on a dusty shelf in the spooky , musty , mysterious earthen floored basement.
one by one they would be retrieved throughout the winter.we'd have them with supper and sometimes my stepfather would give them away to his buddies. he was always proud of my mom's achievements. the jars would be brought out of the basement washed off before they were handed over.
i was wishing i had my mom's recipes yesterday. alas i wasn't that interested when i was young, later when i moved away and returned home for a visit, she would insist that i take jars of pickles with me, when i left. i didn't have the heart to refuse her even though it was a bother packing them up and carrying them in my suitcase. i was somewhat ashamed of their appearance.
i don't remember when i started to appreciate her effort, but thankfully i did long before she no longer made pickles. perhaps it was when my children were gone to school and i had the time to put down a batch of pickles or jams and jellies. i loved having them come home to those wonderful homey smells. i still do.
today i did the rest of the zucchini mustard pickles, using my very own home grown zucchini. i didn't use parrafin wax, but rather went to the walmart and bought brand new mason jars. it felt pretty good carrying on that tradition. happy labour day!