Out my front window last week, I saw sitting on a huge expanse of snow and ice, a gaggle of geese! Maybe 40 or so birds. I could almost read their minds: “What in heaven’s sake are we doing here?”
Yes, indeed, it is kind of a later spring! Water should be water running in creeks and ditches. Also ponds in fields, and lots of bare ground showing. Dry gravel roads. And of course, above zero temperatures both day and night!
Just not quite this year! In our part of the world, spring seems to be arriving about the same time as usual, but cooler for longer. Fall is both warmer, and lasts longer before winter can be called, well, winter.
Those birds? They are here just about on schedule. Leaving their winter “home” before it gets too hot. Coming back to a real home where it’s best to raise the kids. Food is plentiful and easy to find. Predators are few and far between.
It can be said, all in all, this is a pretty good place to live. For some species of birds, and even butterflies, maybe not the best in winter for food. But for people, not really bad at all.
I mention this because over the past several months, High Prairie and Big Lakes County are creating an economic development strategy. Big words to find out how to improve, or even just maintain, a community.
I expect over the next coming months, we will hear more about what ideas are coming out of the strategy and what it mean to all of us. It has to be said, this whole area of development is ripe for talk, talk, and more talk, good and bad.
A former Grande Prairie MLA once said about spending money on staff and studies, and I paraphrase, “You can’t do anything about economic development. It’s something that just happens.”
That was before the industrial park area north of the city of Grande Prairie really got started. Ah yes, those politicians! Good thing nobody listened to him!
Former mayor of High Prairie George Keay, a community booster to the core, says, “If you are standing still, you are actually going backwards.”
So true!
Business person Jean Nicolet in Falher commented, and I can’t remember the dollar amount, but close enough, “They want to spend $300,000 on economic development? Give me $300,000 and I’ll show you economic development!”
Also true!
For myself, I like to say about any endeavour, “Imagine your project, your business, your life, as one of three possible lines moving forward. The first line is what you usually think is happening. It’s flat and even. You think it’s going to stay that way forever, so you don’t have to put any work into it. Think that way, and what you get is a line going right downhill. The fact is, staying level takes work. That’s just the way life is. You want improvement? Change for the good? Better things? You want that line to go uphill? You really have to work at it each and every day. But the good news is, like so many things, the more you work at it, the better you get.”
Whatever plan those geese have, it seems to be still working for them.
Jeff Burgar