I would have to say that what would be my favourite time of the year seems to be again poking its head around the corner and giving us a glimpse of what it has in store for us. I don't think there are too many alive today who can remember when there has been a milder winter but even so I look forward to spring and the new life that it brings. Along with this mild winter spring seems to be extra early this year with temperatures around the province, and for that matter North America, that are setting new highs.
The last time we had this warm of a winter, according to the weather people, was in 1929. That winter still held some of the records for warm temperatures and lowest levels of snowfall. Now if you are a person who pays attention to details in history you might also know that the summer and the following years were some of the driest this province has ever seen. It was a time when drought devastated this province's crops and gardens to the point there were people in the worst hit areas who had little to eat and not much hope of getting more throughout much of the 1930s.
One of those folks that were the worst hit was my mother who, at the start of the Dirty .30s, was about 10 years old. It is through her eyes, memories and actions that I was touched by the trying times she lived through.
It was from her I learned what the effects of poverty could do to a person's outlook on life and it was from her I learned some frugal ways that were a part of her life even when she and my father were actually doing very well. She could never get over not having had enough to eat and having to live on oatmeal and the dried fish sent from down east. Because of this to her it was a sin to waste food and there was always some way to make leftovers taste like a meal fit for a king. It was because of her that I grew up realizing that spending exorbitant prices to get some faddish name brand item was a useless waste even if a person could afford it. She helped teach me that that excess money could be better used to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
Even so it has been impossible for me to teach my kids these lessons to the degree that they were taught to me because, even though I saw it through her eyes, I never really lived it. I never had to wonder if I was going to have something to eat or whether I would have new clothes when I needed them. In that department I was blessed by the way my parents budgeted and handled their money to make sure I never went without the necessities of life and even was blessed with some of the things not classed as necessities but were wonderful in giving me some extras that helped me enjoy my childhood and youth in a way that they were never able to.
Like many lessons as they are passed on from generation to generation, some of the impact is lost due to the distance in time from the events which brought them into being in the first place. And each time they are passed on those lessons are reduced in their severity since the impact is not personally felt. The droughts of the '30s were a very severe way for many people having to learn some lessons and in some ways it would be great if the instruction could have been less cruel, but as we see from history sometimes humankind has the ability to overlook or ignore simple lessons.
One thing I know for sure though is that there is one definite lesson that still seems to have held great sway in our farming communities and that is that conservation of soil moisture is never to be overlooked. We just have to look out our backyard to see the farming methods used and compare to the ones used in the past.
We do learn, but sometimes it takes Mother Nature to give us a kick in the derriere for us to sit up and pay attention, just like our moms and dads did with us. My grandmother used to say children listen better from the bottom end. We just hope that maybe this time, if we see another drought, she doesn't kick us quite as hard as she did back then.
Quote: "Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another." Gilbert K. Chesterton
