Maybe we should not be surprised, but we completely missed thinking about frost the past few weeks.

Just goes to show you The Page ‘green thumbs’ are not so green after all.

Maybe it had something to do with the Farmer’s Almanac predicting a warmer than usual fall. Maybe it was just the weather did seem really nice, even if leaves are changing colour and there is a nip in the air.

We weren’t the only ones caught sleeping. Environment Canada in their weather forecasts had night time lows in the +4C range.

But, as it happened, there was a touch of frost early last week.

This, even as the weekend just past, had more predictions of warm weather.

In fact, the extended forecast shows nice weather all the way until Oct. 1 when – finally – the temperature is expected to dip below freezing.

Back in real time now, besides frost, leaves changing colour and starting to fall, there was even a touch of snow.

Edmonton reported a sprinkling last week, and buckets of snow were reported in Jasper – several inches in fact. And of course, one can see and hear birds flying south.

Oh well, winter is indeed coming!

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Sept. 21 last week was the fall equinox.

That’s when day and night are equal in length, 12 hours each.

As you know, days are getting shorter since June 20 on their way to the shortest day of the year, Dec. 21.

But it just seems the past three or so weeks one really notices that shortening.

In fact, its hard to believe day and night are now just about equal.

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Whew, that was a longgg story in last week’s newspaper [see southpeacenews.com if you missed it online] about the new Northern Lakes College campus planned in High Prairie!

The gist we get is that NLC is worried they may lose their money for a new building if they don’t get dirt moving next year. So, they don’t want to wait around for the Government of Alberta to decide what will happen with the old hospital site in town.

That site needs the building torn down, and the site cleaned up before anybody can build there.

Several High Prairie town councillors are worried that if action isn’t taken soon on that site, it could possibly sit for years and years. Sort of like the Esso property, but boarded up, and generally turning into an even bigger eyesore.

Meanwhile, the High Prairie School Division is hot to trot on getting the NLC campus moved over to land beside the present Elementary School.

HPSD, according to their Website, seems to also be worried the college will lose its money. So they say they are “proud to support this important project!”

Good for them!

But it has to be asked, when did the HPSD, nice people they are, start to speak for the rest of the folks of High Prairie? Doesn’t anybody else, including High Prairie’s own elected town councillors, get a say?

Apparently not.

And neither, it seems, does the Holy Family School District, which originally was one of three partners in the whole plan.

HPSD trustee Joyce Dvornek says, “There will be differing opinions but at the end of the day, we need to do what is right for students. This decision is reflective of our board’s commitment to collaboration with community partners to realize our goal of providing quality education in an integrated facility.”

Nice words. But how does building NLC in one location or another, or in particular, building at the elementary school site, equate with “doing what is right for students?”

And there are other questions. Maybe one had to be at the secret meeting a few weeks ago to get the answers.

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Do not forget to attend the election forum on Oct. 3. Please see story on page 20.

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Have a great week!