About Hastings County, ON

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom." - Barack Obama

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I was an educator for 38 years. I taught greades JK though 8, grade 12 English, special education. music, andcourses for teachers at the university level. I was a vice-Principal and I spent 8 1/2 years as coordinator for our local board of education in Ontario, Canada.

I understand Obama's motivation in making this statement. North America is getting hammered by international competition, but I think he is wrong about the need to have longer school days and longer school years for three reasons.

1) First, ask yourself ... would I be a more effective, better balanced, and happier person now if I had spent a lot more time in school?

2) I am tired of hearing about our academic results being compared to those of kids in asian countries. A while ago there was a team of Japanese educators sent over to North America to study our systems and try to solve a serious problem - how to prevent having so many of their teenagers commit suicide under the pressure of schooling and examinations.

3) I know that most teachers do their best ... but look at the system. 20 -30 kids are crammed into a classroom and force fed a curriculum that they had no say in designing, ok, actually one that none of their parents helped to design either. Keep costs low ... treat academic learning as the only measure of success, and basically, you get what we've got. Do you really want more of the same?

I learned to read because of Huckleberry Finn.

I learned division because my sister and I couldn't play a game of marbles fairly if the bag full was not evenly divided.

I learned to investigate the best way of doing thigs because if you grab a crawfish the wrong way, it pinches you - hard.

I learned responsibility, manners, and respect for authority at home.

I learned cooperation, empathy and joy from my friends.

When I grew up and really wanted to learn how to do something, I studied. I don't remember being told how to do research in school, but when I needed those skills to complete a B.A., a masters program, and a doctorate, I knew what to do.

I can't see how I could have been any better prepared for life if my school days and school year had been longer.

Let's back off and give our kids time to be kids.

Each month I post the average residential sales stats for our region using MLS data. This month I have started to provide a bit different analysis that goes beyond month to month variations and looks at trends that occur within what statisticians sometimes refer to as the "tube" of variation.

In other words, whether this month was a few points higher or lower than the previous month is not as important as seeing the general trend that occurs across months.

Think of a marble bouncing around in a tube. If you were to take a snapshot at any particular moment, the marble might be near the top of the tube, or at the bottom, or somewhere in between. That sort of variation is not as important as being able to see if the tube is generally heading upwards, or stable, or heading downwards.

My latest graphics are intended to interpret our market activity in this way.



For a clearer full-size graphic, and further information about these market trends, please visit

http://bobfoster.ca/real_estate_news.htm

We have all heard of horsepower, but the farmer who rents the agricultural land on my property has gone one step further - cow power!


(Photo credit: Richard Turtle)

He has installed a couple of methane digesters that take the waste from the cattle (cow poo) and turn it into methane which is used to run electricity generators.

Are you ready for this? - On this farm alone they will be able to generate enough power to meet the needs of about 400 homes!

Wow! What great green technology.

Our local paper, has given me permission to republish one of their recent articles about this, so you can get more information about this project on one of my websites:

http://movingtothecountry.ca/the_environment.htm

Each month I post an update on the real estate market for the Quinte Region of Ontario, Canada at this address:

http://yourhomeinquinte.com/real_estate_news.htm

The good news this month is that there is strong evidence that market recovery is underway. After a series of month to month increases from January to April, and slight declines in May and June, July has proven to be one of the best months on record, with average residential prices back to within 1.6% of where they were at this time last year, and the combined dollar volume for all categories of sales coming in at a 32.4% increase over that of July 2008!

With low mortgage rates, and properties on the market that are still great values, it really is a good time to invest in real estate.

Our rural area in Quinte is one of tremendous contrasts.

The farmer who rents our land has recently put in two new methane digesters which will use cattle manure, field waste and even used restaurant grease to produce electricity. It's proven technology, and he will soon be supplying enough electricity to meet the needs of 400 homes. Amazing. I will try to post more about that in the future.

As an extreme contrast to that kind of technology, we are blessed to have Old Order Mennonites in our community. They don't like to have their picture taken, so I respect their wishes in that, but I have a rich supply of pictures in my head of these hard-working folk, running along the side of the highway in their carriages and wagons, delivering our supply of wood for the winter, and even one great scene where three young fellows had two horses pulling a wagon, followed by s second wagon that had a boat on it. They were off to a day of fishing with the original boat trailer!

Today I passed this scene in one of the local fields -

Aliens with floppy haircuts? No, just some hay drying, "bailed together" and almost reeady to collect. The bales were anything but square, though, so I looked around and spotted this old fashion bailer -



which would be horse-drawn, of course.

One thing that interests me is that we are all scrambling to find alternate fuels to deal with the depletion of oil reserves that will become a more acute problem very soon.

If oil goes to $300 a barrel, will these people even notice?