Beyond the chain link fence

This web site has been posting for almost nine years now and each day as I put together some stories and pictures, I have this feeling that I am working on a chain link fence, each bit tied to the others and somehow holding us all back from the greater reality. Stories and pictures weave together and create the fabric of the site, but I am uneasy about the limited abilities of a one man show. Clearly, I simply can not cover everything; hard news, opinion, public service, sports, entertainment, technology. I feel a lot like this lone sparrow this morning, my feathers ruffled and a little uncertain about things.

We often refer to fog as something the obscures reality but the real point of fog is that it is the subject and not the distraction. Certainly it is hard to see things in a fog but it is often just as hard to see things in bright light since our opinions and disposition form clouds of perception.

This morning the temperature was -7º and the air was filled to its maximum with water vapour which means that at 9:10 the dew point and temperature coincided and we had cloud from the ground up. Chupa and Thomas were both going full tilt clearing back alleys of snow in preparation for spring.

Shelagh Rogers was on CBC so I tuned in 650 Talk Radio and listened to the most upbeat broadcast I have heard about Saskatchewan in decades. Essentially the host and guests were discussing the boom in Saskatchewan that is affecting all economic sectors; the shortage of labour, being a "have" province and the positive nature of improvements with more people working then ever before. We can see signs of this boom here in Tisdale and definitely it is apparent throughout the province. The big challenge is to involve everyone in this boom. We need to get the aboriginal youth of the province employed.

After listening to that segment and then setting to work in my office to clear away the clutter of spam in my e-mail, I still like thought of things getting better. There is a Saskatchewan tendency to see things much more positively in the spring, that's when we plant crops, buy a new car and gleefully bid farewell to another winter.

I realise I am still working on my chain link fence but its a good fence and with your participation as a reader and sometimes as a contributor, it can be even a better fence. Warmer tomorrow.