Our week in Regina

Our stay in Regina is almost at an end. Here are some highlights from the past week. A family get-together at a local restaurant. L-R: Julie and Joy (sisters who each live and work on dairy farms in Balgonie), Arlete, Kim (Kathy's daughter), Glenn, Kathy, Jeanette, Uncle Fernie, and Sandra. My bike gets some TLC: new brake cables, clicking noise removed, click-in pedals loosened up a bit. Dick bought a new tire for his bike, this one is the right size.

The weather has been very wet. Four times the normal amount of rain has fallen, along with hail, dramatic thunder and lightening, washed out highways, evacuated communities, fields that never got seeded and ruined gardens.

Glenn baked a saskatoon berry pie one night. (Don't call them blueberries.)

Glenn works at the RCMP Training Academy. This is the RCMP badge:

The chapel is the oldest building in Regina, built in 1885.

We watched the Sergeant Major's Parade where 4 classes of cadets marched into the parade square for inspection

accompanied by the cadet band.

The family farm was homesteaded in 1905, the barn was built in 1917. We're not sure where the family lived for the first 16 years, it may have been in a small building which later became the blacksmith's shop.

The house was built in 1919. The porch on the right was added recently.

Marcia and Donald Manz, along with Reg Manz (Glenn's brothers) are the 3rd generation to farm this land.

We drove out to cousin Ruth's property, walked through native grasses and alfalfa until we came to the tepee which she, Brenda and friends recently erected.

With your back to the tepee, you can look into a branch of Qu'Appelle Valley where Loon Creek flows. In the distance, you can see Donald and Reg's cattle grazing in another field. Walking back, Glenn explained that in these bush- and tree-filled low-lying areas,

you find wild saskatoon berry trees which can grow to 26 feet. Commercially-farmed saskatoons are grown on deciduous bushes about 4 feet tall. Here Glenn is pointing out chokecherries.

Wheatwyn Church and cemetery, built in 1906, now a municipal heritage site.

In addition to my grandparents, 4 of my mom's siblings are or will be buried here beside their spouses.

The nearest town to the farm is Markinch, population (in 2006) = 59

My grandmother's house on the main street of Markinch, greatly changed from the last time I saw it in 1955. It was here that Grandma made homemade bread in a wood-burning stove, cut thick slices, spread them with butter, added a thick layer of brown sugar, topped with drops of cream and gave them to an adoring 7-year-old from California.

Glenn and his mother, Adeline:

Glenn's nephews, Tanner & Tyson. Their father, Reg, and his wife were in Rapid City SD with their daughter Makenzie who was playing fastpitch softball: Glenn's sister Andrea and her husband, Les:

At church, we were surprised to meet relatives of relatives from my father's side of the family. L-R: Daryl & Gail McArthur Posehn, Caroline and Arnold Posehn. I must also thank Caroline and Arnold for treating us a wonderful brunch after church.

Our days in Regina are now at an end. Tomorrow we get back on the road. Dick and I are so grateful to Glenn for his generous hospitality.