Eightish years tomorrow

Sure, one doesn't normally count partial years but when it comes to a blog with a questionable premise and minuscule readership I'm willing to play with the counting a little bit.

Back in 2006 did anyone think that Montifax would still be a going concern all these years later?

Could anyone have guessed Montifax's writers would end up living in six of Canada's ten provinces? And that one of these provinces would be Saskatchewan?

Anyway, thanks for reading - and if all goes well we'll return to something approximating semi-regular updates in the not too distant future (though I have to still work a few things out in my head before that happens).

Thanks for reading (even if we're not really doing much writing).

Things I've learned since I moved to Saskatchewan

1. There are people in Canada that actually follow the CFL

For most of my life I assumed that the CFL was mostly just a punchline or a trivia answer.  Turns out it is actually a going sports concern in parts of Canada.  Of course, at least as far as I can tell, those parts of the country that care about the CFL are likely found somewhere west of Winnipeg and east of Calgary (I'm pretty sure Vancouver is way too cool to be into anything in a big way).

2. Municipal snow plows are only for primary arteries

Yup, they basically don't plough residential streets in many communities in Saskatchewan.  Instead of ploughing residents just pack the snow into inches high sheets of ice that they are then expected to drive on.  Of course, over time deep ruts develop and those lower clearance vehicles may have a few problems - but that seems to be accepted as a consequence of owning anything less than a pick-up truck.

3. Saskatchewan is one of the world's primary sources for lentils

This cool fact seems to be under appreciated by most of the Saskatchewanians I've spoken to so far.  Of course, I'm still hopeful that eventually this informational nugget may form the basis of some kind of 'healthy protein' campaign, or at least as a protein heavy response to Alberta beef.

4. Saskatchewan mistakenly thinks that Shannon Tweed is a native daughter

Everybody knows that Shannon Tweed is really from Newfoundland.  Case closed.

5. 'Dry cold,' like 'dry heat,' makes all the difference

Though it's been at least -15 for the past few weeks it's not nearly as bad as -5 and the sideways-falling sleet-like precipitation that one often encounters in Newfoundland.  Of course, when you start getting really low temperatures your car may not start or you may get frostbite - but aren't these just small prices to pay for no slush?

It's been too long

So I'm sure that in my absence most of our regular readers haven't been getting their RDA of time-lapse content.

So here's a hot vid from our October trip to Indiana.

Turns out we had the pleasure of being able to watch the harvesting process as applied to a field of popcorn (a bigish crop in Indiana).

Enjoy!




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No need to thank me for helping to ward off your case of time-lapse scurvy.

Big changes

Sorry for the unusually long radio silence - the past few months (really since July) have been much more intense than usual.

Not only have I been travelling more than usual (two trips to the Maritimes, two trips to the Prairies, and a trip to Chicago/Indianapolis), but I also had the pleasure of getting married to Jeannette (in October) and somewhat suddenly accepting a new job in Regina (which started in early November).

Anyway, all of these things kind of piled up and lead to circumstances in which regular updates to Montifax were not feasible.

Now that you're all sort of caught up maybe I'll try to post a few items about a few of the months that we've all had the pleasure of just living through.