BALJENNIE — The Western Development Museum in North Battleford has been a very busy place for tourists stopping to tour through the village buildings and inside the museum. School Kids Day was held on June 6th and 7th with many school children and their chaperones and some parents as well. There were many very interesting things for them to see and some things for them to take part in. They all went away a happy bunch.
June is First Nations month and they have been doing a lot of different activities at the museum. They come in and set up all their Tee-pees and hold a feast for all. Then later in the week, they did a big pow-wow and native dancing and lots of different costumes. The elders were storytelling to anyone interested. There were close to 2000 attending.
On June 21 they had a pancake breakfast that had to be moved to the Agra Villa due to rain showers.
The museum has also been kept very busy in the different rooms of rentals such as birthday parties and funerals. The museum staff have been kept busy with a lot of woodwork doors and window frames in the yard and the village. The big hip-roof barn is going to have a fresh coat of paint soon. They have their summer students for the summer months.
We are at last getting some warmer weather to bring on the summer storms. Most of May and June have been chilly days. One or two nights the temps did drop down to show white frost in low areas. There have been some pretty good rain showers to get the crops all started, and also to help out with the northern forest fires. Farmers have been doing seeding for a while now. Busy now with weeds and pests approaching there are different frogs and grasshoppers about.
Stanley and Walter Mills on a recent trip to Saskatoon made a short stop at Borden to visit with Kay Leech. She has moved from her little house across the street to Borden Senior Home.
Remember to take care while out walking near thick grass and trees as there still seems to be a lot of nasty ticks about just waiting to jump for a new ride on you or your dogs. Many people have been gathered with them.
Now we are into the season to expect all sorts of weather conditions. On this past Sunday, we had a wild nasty fresh storm pass through our area in Battleford. All we got was a thunderstorm and heavy rain. There were storm warnings on T.V. It did cover all of southern Sask reports of hail the size of golf balls. Several twister tornado warnings for different areas. No damage if they touch the ground. This is the season for this type of weather conditions and storms.
My husband Stanley and I will always remember June 30, 2009, at 4 p.m. the Mills farm at Baljennie got hit by a tornado that destroyed most of the farm buildings and hedge trees. Some damage was done to the house. We were both okay but it did take months or more to rebuild up again. Our neighbours and friends were there to help us out.
