teaching kids to swim early is important.
ours learnt at 12 months
they still have lessons weekly. at 4 my daughter can do freestyle.
The Old Folks Home
- Thread starter Wisher1000
- Start date
ours learnt at 12 months
they still have lessons weekly. at 4 my daughter can do freestyle.
My experience with scouting was a mixed bag. As I recall, the Brownie troop of which I was a member was fun, and did interesting stuff. But we moved, and the Girl Scout troop in our new town seemed to do little more than sell cookies and remind people that they had gotten behind on their dues. The thing that clinched it for me, though, was what you might call a "personality conflict" with the troop leader. There's something about having the mother or aunt of several of your friends tell you, "You little brat, I'd like to shake every tooth out of your head," that can really turn a 10-year-old off to the subject of scouting!
Oz, with water so close to your back door, I can see that you'd want the kids to swim like ducks! I was a lot older when I first learned; as I recall, just getting up the nerve to put my face in the water was a major challenge! Looking good!
Oz, with water so close to your back door, I can see that you'd want the kids to swim like ducks! I was a lot older when I first learned; as I recall, just getting up the nerve to put my face in the water was a major challenge! Looking good!
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Most scout leaders are just parents. Some, even though they think they are doing the right thing, can really impact a kids psycheMy experience with scouting was a mixed bag. As I recall, the Brownie troop of which I was a member was fun, and did interesting stuff. But we moved, and the Girl Scout troop in our new town seemed to do little more than sell cookies and remind people that they had gotten behind on their dues. The thing that clinched it for me, though, was what you might call a "personality conflict" with the troop leader. There's something about having the mother or aunt of several of your friends tell you, "You little brat, I'd like to shake every tooth out of your head," that can really turn a 10-year-old off to the subject of scouting!
Holy cr*p I would not be enthusiastic about any group that was run like that. Some times memories like that can really leave a scar. Some times memories like that can motivate people to get involved were they can to make it a better experience for others. My father was military so we moved ALL the time there were no opportunities to join clubs or get involved..we would just move again so I listened to other kids experiences and dreamed I could 'belong too'. But it was not to be.My experience with scouting was a mixed bag. As I recall, the Brownie troop of which I was a member was fun, and did interesting stuff. But we moved, and the Girl Scout troop in our new town seemed to do little more than sell cookies and remind people that they had gotten behind on their dues. The thing that clinched it for me, though, was what you might call a "personality conflict" with the troop leader. There's something about having the mother or aunt of several of your friends tell you, "You little brat, I'd like to shake every tooth out of your head," that can really turn a 10-year-old off to the subject of scouting!
You just made me cry, in a good way.
I saw that on the news. I love the story.
For many years, I checked out from the library every book I could find on buried treasure and lost mines. Superstition mountains and Montezuma's gold are among my favorite stories. Once I went into the Ouachita mountains of Arkansas for 2 weeks backpacking to pan for gold. That's the first time in my life I remember being lonely. The job I had didn't have much work so rather than lay people off they worked us one week and gave us 2 weeks off for close to a year. I devised a plan to pan for gold in Arizona. The methodology is a secret since it's still a plan.
The Arkansas trip was practice for the Arizona trip. I had researched any area where gold had been discovered within a day's drive of MO and was also on public land. The Ouachita National forest was the place.
teaching kids to swim early is important.
ours learnt at 12 months
they still have lessons weekly. at 4 my daughter can do freestyle.
So awesome.
Some people are just plain mean. Myself included sometimes.My experience with scouting was a mixed bag. As I recall, the Brownie troop of which I was a member was fun, and did interesting stuff. But we moved, and the Girl Scout troop in our new town seemed to do little more than sell cookies and remind people that they had gotten behind on their dues. The thing that clinched it for me, though, was what you might call a "personality conflict" with the troop leader. There's something about having the mother or aunt of several of your friends tell you, "You little brat, I'd like to shake every tooth out of your head," that can really turn a 10-year-old off to the subject of scouting!
Oz, with water so close to your back door, I can see that you'd want the kids to swim like ducks! I was a lot older when I first learned; as I recall, just getting up the nerve to put my face in the water was a major challenge! Looking good!
-------------------------------------
Daughter just posted.
"Just a warning that there will be a plethora of Angkor Wat images coming your way in about 8 hours."
So consider yourselves forewarned.
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Canuck, you write the best stories. I just love reading stories from you and Wisher.
Thank you...I am rather new here and I too love reading Wisher's work. I mean, it is like Shakespeare...here's what I mean...
<<Wisher, gonna talk about you like you aren't here, no offense meant>>
Wisher has a nightmare where the 16 year old son gets married in a funeral home, reception at KFC...seems not connected till you pause to think on it. My way of relating is that I fought being a responsible parent, an adult...who EVER wants to grow up and behave. Thank the stars that newborns don't remember how goofy their parents were...at least that was MY case. I never played with dolls. Plastic farm animals were my thing, then my alive real dogs and my precious mutt chooks...but dollies...like GET REAL! Babies, human ones, you had to change them, feed them...I babysat and was in demand but they PAID me to do that stuff. I mean with chooks you do sorta the same things but you don't have to be there 24/7 if you dunna wanna. Give me a puppy or a pony and I am thrilled but human babes are just so much WORK....hee hee hee...if the kid(s) are raise up right and what, costs something in the neighbourhood of $250,000+ per kid...that's a fair number of animal/poultry dependents in comparison, eh? Heck if we built it ourselves, that's 2.5 times a right proper decent human house built! Ha ha ha...my son loves me...did I mention he makes me chicken soup to take home when we visit.
I did step up right quick, reached down and found my inner adult wanting to come forth, squash the inner bad ***** delinquent I had allowed myself to become. I found myself rocking groceries and being a decent parent but at the very beginning, I fought it and right properly lost. So I let that being responsible take over. Once we are a proper parent (no kid comes with an instruction booklet or "how to" manual, so I winged it), then when they ARE 16 and start being a right proper person...well we don't let go, at least I found it difficult. I gave up being irresponsible and became someone you could count on...I was not shirking MY duties in a mere, 16 years...in for a penny, in for a pound!
So for Wisher to have a 16 year old boy get married in a funeral home, it IS like a death...death of your duties as a parent in being completely responsible for them. They grow up and are entitled to make their OWN decisions, good or bad or just plain coasting along. So the funeral home is perfect for losing a baby, but gaining an adult through marriage and responsibility. It is a loss and a sign that the empty nest is not too far distant. They might be ready to try their wings but we as parents, are we willing to let go...see them plummet and potentially crash!
Then the reception at KFC....well what is done with a dead chicken...incinerators...crematorium? How kewl is the KFC analogy for "crispy fried" feets up dead chook. Perfection said in a few sparse words that painted a graphic picture with deep meanings to contemplate. Some kewl, eh??
So yes, I too am a fan/groupy of Wishers.
<<OK, you can get back to reading again Wisher--your ears can stop burning>>
Wisher, you rock!
Tara, I have you beat on the inappropriately dressed award.
Back in 2001 we were renting a two story house with a winding, narrow staircase that had three landings - so basically a corkscrew. It was in the heart of the winter and below freezing outside. My husband worked a job over in Mississippi that required him to make an hour+ drive to and from work so he was always up around 4:30am to get ready. Well, one morning he was in the bathroom getting ready to take his shower when he heard the dogs in the backyard start barking like they were going to eat something alive if they could get at it, then heard a loud bang in the front of the house. He runs into the bedroom, grabs his .45 out of the bedside table and runs/slips down those corkscrew stairs and out the front door - BUCK NEKKED.
I'm still trying to get myself awake, figure out what the ruckus is, and get downstairs when I hear him yelling something unintelligible up to me from downstairs. When I finally get down there, he's standing halfway in and halfway out of the front door, holding his pistol, and looking out across the front yard. Poor man was turning blue and was yelling for me to bring him his robe and slippers. Turns out what he and the dogs heard was someone breaking into my car which was parked in the driveway. He had seen the person running away as he opened the front door and had chased them to the end of the driveway - again BUCK NEKKED and barefoot.(I simply can't say that enough.)
My car was a late 90's model Eclipse and they had broken out the little rear triangle window but didn't realize that they still could not reach the door handle (typical genius criminal) so all they managed to steal was the MagLite flashlight I kept in the backseat while leaving behind their cheapie that they used to break the window.
Over the years since, we've had other instances that required a quick dash to the door in the middle of the night but he has never again left the bedroom without at least his underwear on.
Hee hee hee...good one. Them poor men, testosterone will get them in all sorts of predicaments...the provider and protector. Love that!
I was going to say close to the line of "Naked Gun" but he sounds like he ain't no Leslie William Nielsen! More an XXX rated 007...hee hee...Pierce Brosnan perhaps?
So can we say if he was "BUCK NEKKED" (yes, those two words are not said often enough though at my age and condition...it is more a threat --"Oh my eyes!"-- than a tantalizing attractant! Watch out, the fat lady may disrobe and clear the WHOLE dang place out...bwa ha ha...still got it going on...still DANGEROUS but for other reasons) and had no shoes and only a gun, that he really wasn't dressed at all...not made ANY clothing choice so not really inappropriately dressed? Just a technicality really 'cause yer story was AWESOME to read!
It is fun that your man was so intent on running off the riff raff that he completely forgot himself. I do love the focus and intensity of men when they set their minds to something. Being buck necked (yes, just once more!) never stopped a "man on a mission."
This is my lil' Surfer Dude (bantam Chantecler project male)...I wanted some pics of him and well, I guess I chose a rather blustery day last November. See his long "blonde" surfer dude hackle blowing in the wind with his widdle grippy toes. His face still makes me laugh...true grit...hanging tough. That male determined look to please a female...even if they get kilt in the process?
"Is she EVER gonna realize between CLICKS I am flippin' FREEZING here! One more GUST and I'm a goner!"
Cuckoo Partridge based on eb brown with autosomal red and Mahogany...yeh, a messed up pile of colour genetics that are sorta like Crèle but not based on duckwing wild type...Kewl dude expressing that male attitude of determination when faced with adversity. Dunna mess with a man on a mission, eh?
I watched my hero spend an entire winter retrofitting our boat we have when we lived on the WEsT Coast of British Columbia. Both him and I loved salt or fresh water fishing (I never stayed home on the weekends cleaning my purse because I loved to clean the catch...dug the worms, had gas money, and made real good food--I was out fishing with the guys cause I pulled more than my own load)...so he took an older Lund (nfi) metal boat and went about putting in new wooden seats and such. Spent days sanding and painting, steel wool and then more coats drying. I must say I was plum proud of how the boat looked when we launched her off on her maiden redone voyage that spring. Now no laughing but back when we would go fishing, it was never really about catching the fish though we were serious about the salmon for canning and the snapper/ling/halibut for fish & chips ... it was more about the time we spent out together; no pagers going off, no phones ringing, our time to enjoy the Great Outdoors eating lunch and watching the wildlife and sucking up the fresh air. So like each new year of fishing, takes a bit of practise to get the trolling speed figured back out... There goes Rick's rod and he pulls in a Sea Bass...not what we were fishing for...wanted salmon...but still good eats. So I look at him as he beats the fish off his hook...BAM BAM BAM...on the new painted seat. I'm in stunned shock and when I find my voice, I ask him..."WHAT are you DOING?" as he dents & dimples his long winter's project... He stops what he is doing and simply says rather sheepishly, "I don't know...?"
I got just one more about clothing choices before I let the sleeping dawgs lie...
Kid was a baby and had been fussing all night...I had finally gotten him to sleep and I too was sleeping. Rick had to go to work that morn, so in order not to wake me up, he never turned on the lights when choosing his clothes...off he roars in the dark. It starts getting light, he's driving and he looks down at his feet...
Use to wear a lot of cowboy boots (had many pairs). He looks down and notes he had put on one BLUE boot and one BROWN boot. Like that two different socks (because the washer eats socks) reply..."Got another pair jest like them at home!" The boys at work sure razzed the crappola outta him that day (they wore coveralls and certified safety work boots but all changed at the Dry before and after work--put on their civies) but at least he came home to a recovered and rested fam that was happy to see him--no matter how goofy he looked.
I still gotta watch him...he'll go out to town with holey shirts, pants that barely resemble pants; he simply don't care, too busy enjoying life to look in a mirror. So sometimes it is a race to the gate to make sure he don't escape looking like, GASP...a SINGLE available man! No decent wife would let her husband get away like that...out the gates looking THAT scruffy. Often I have to stop him in town, he's made it out the door before I and put a coat over his shirt; because our fingers don't work like they use to...there he stands in a misaligned and wrong buttoned shirt; oblivious and happy!
"AGH! That one would be MINE...ALL mine!"
He'll be the death of me trying to keep him looking just half presentable...take him out, but sure can't keep him dressed UP! He simply does not care....
I am thinking it is GORGEOUS! My mother gave my son a cup and bowl set by Royal Doulton Bunnykins which begin in 1934. Whatever Grans give, whatever they think is appropriate, that is their rights as a Grand to choose. Timeless treasures and future family heirlooms. I love your choice and say, GO fer it...!!!
Only large fowl breed I want. I've had others in the past but quite frankly, there is something unique about a breed made by a futuristic thinking Monk like Bro W. Chanteclers are sweet, tough, active good foragers, give so much of themselves (Jumbo winter eggs & 9 pound cockerels) even in less than ideal weather extremes (we normally get -40 to +40C/104F--no issues with the birds coping on either end of the temperature scale in a year). To me they are what a general purpose fowl was suppose to look and act like.
Have you tried Glenn? He's a preservation center in the States and his stock is healthy--my Chantelle is an original Buff hen of his. A little too soft feathered (working on firmer feathers in the self-buffs) but can't complain on her vigour, production, temperament, disease resistance, and longevity. He'll send you Partridge in both cockerel- and pullet-breeders too which is a real bonus if the colour pattern/visual phenotype is something you want to match the SOP descriptions on in both exhibition genders. A place to start again with. I think he's only sold out to April on the Partis, but they do go quickly; the Whites are sold out already for 2014.
The lack of wattles and the cushion comb took me a bit to get use to but when it's -36C (-32F) like they are predicting this weekend (Sat and Sun; March IS coming in like a LION!), I revel in knowing there are not going to be black combs and hurty wattles to witness--nothing sadder than a regal roo with a head fulla hurt! Love my "sing brightly" happy hen flock and how they thrive.
I took this pic of my F1 bantam Chant project birds and almost deleted it...until I realized...it personified the perfection of the "CUSHION comb" Bwa ha ha...how cushiony IS a comb that other chooks want to sit upon, eh?
Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!
The phaeomelanin "circus chicken" female has only a single dose of Pg, but not shabby for a first generation prospect working towards Partridge.
This is a chick from the third generation from this winter, getting closer to better Partridge expression. Brood ma is a Partridge bantam Brahma (2nd photo) and the other chick is a bantam Brahma. I knew colour was gonna be rainbows of variations but "Rome was not build in a day."
OK...my coffee break here is done like enough silliness for now.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Some just set the wrong example. We had a scout leader tipping over a rock formation at Goblin Valley State Park a couple of months back. He claimed that he tipped the formation over because it seemed like it was going to fall over and possibly hurt someone. There are two fallacies associated with that statement. First, the formation had been there for millions of years and hadn't fallen over nor was it unstable. Second, the video he posted on YouTube (where he is laughing about the whole thing) seems to negate the so called "emergency" he was claiming. Too bad a few bad apples can really spoil the bunch at times.
Tara, my husband was a police officer for 10 years before he got his engineering degree and joined the USAF for another 28 years. He is the very definition of intensity and focus when he thinks anyone or anything is going to hurt his family, property, or pets. The riff raff who broke my car window should still be thanking their lucky stars that my husband did NOT catch them that morning or they would have needed an ambulance ride to the hospital instead of a police car ride to a jail cell. I love that man of mine and he does NOT mess around with our safety. I wouldn't trade him for anything.
I, for some reason, don't like to use things like OMG and LOL. Maybe I feel like more of a typist than a texter but I just looked at the weather forecast. OMG. We're going down to near zero a couple nights next week. I feel like a wimp since I saw this morning that Minneapolis has had 45 days below zero. 10th most on record - so far.
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