Peter Liebaert vacationed two times in Mexico this winter and is glad he did travel, because staying at home by himself gets lonely. On one of these trips, Angela Clark, his sister, and her husband from Saskatoon accompanied Peter to a resort near Cancun. The other holiday was with his cousin Gerard Fransoo from rural North Battleford to a site a few hundred miles south of Mazatlan.
Retired farmer Jessie Konopelski, who lives in Valley View Towers in North Battleford, vacationed in Dento, Md. in November 2019. His eldest son, Steven, resides in this town of 5,000 that is a half-hour drive from Baltimore. He and his partner Rob own Turnbridge Point Inn, an elegant, lavishly decorated and popular bed and breakfast. I was there in June 12016 and loved the atmosphere and the mouth-watering, delicious pastries Steven is known for nationally. A couple of years ago, he was a winner on the TV cooking show, the Gingerbread House Edition
Jessie was then off to Salina, Utah to visit daughter Heather Parsons (Greg), who have five children. Heather is a stay-at-home mom, while her husband teaches school. She is a former home economics teacher at Emery Country School District.
Jessie had a wonderful visit with two of her three children. Son Daniel (Jenny) live on a farm near my place.
There are usually fewer weddings in March compared to most other seasons. Boyd Kowalczyk and Erin Findlay tied the knot last month. They farm in the Hatherleigh/Whitkow area and Erin teaches at Medstead School. Erin is the daughter of Lee and Glenda Findlay (nee Saccucci) of North Battleford. Boyd's parents, Gisele and Adolph, live and farm near the newlyweds.
Glenda grew up on a farm east of Mayfair and attended Mayfair Central School . Her brother Lyle Saccucci (Vivian) also farms east of Mayfair.
Our oldest son did return safely from his winter holiday in Costa Rica and Panama a few weeks ago. The weird thing is that when he flew into Toronto Pearson Airport he said you would not even know that anything is different in the world. A kiosk sign stated something about COVID-19 then blanked out. He checked at a few other kiosks and they also failed. Curtis questioned an airport employee and she said to just ignore the problem and shoved him through with the steady flow of passengers. Again, at his destination of Saskatoon four hours later, there was no buzz about telling people to go into 14-day quarantine. He said he heard more on this through news media than anything in those two airports.
Toronto, along with Vancouver, according to the news, should be enforcing COVID-19 rules and carefully monitoring visitors. Screening of overseas passengers should be given top priority, but in my son's experience this was not the case.
Palm Sunday, April 5, has left millions of Christians observing this special day at home. Many churches held services online. Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, the most important week of the Christian religious calendar, which is culminated Easter Sunday. Usually, this special holiday is a good landmark for warmer weather, but perhaps not in 2020.
School students will take some of their classes online, as the Ministry of Education has implemented a program. Some parents have encouraged their children to work on their lessons at home these past few weeks, but now this program should make learning fun.
The RM of Meeting Lake office is now closed to the public. Administrator Janelle Lavallee is at the office and can be reached by phone at 306-246-4228, fax 306-246-4974 or email rm466@sasktel.net.
Thickwood Hills Wildlife Federation cancelled the fish fry thy have held for numerous years.
Ice fishing came to an end March 31. Most local lakes reported good to fair catches and now fishers have to wait for the open water angling season to being, usually the middle of May. I recently learned trout can be fished year round and there are two lakes near Leoville well-stocked with trout.
Have a blessed Easter season, albeit a white one. The farmers are getting antsy about the abundance of snow blanketing the ground. One day we might be surprised to crocuses popping through the prairie.
