On Canada Day, because it is allowed as our Covid rules lessen, we went to see Grammie and the Big Guy. Aunt C and her family were there too.
I really like going to their house because there are a lot of great places to sit and relax while still supervising.
There is the settee where you can see the people on the deck and watch the front door.
Dear pals,
We are living in hard times. The Man has cooked duck a few times lately and kept the duck fat. Because we have not been as enthusiastic over our food, sometimes he puts some in it.
The first time, he just put it on, and Princess Hailey, did not like the texture. Therefore, he has taken to heating it up and pouring it in our food.
As we mentioned last week, we made the decision to put Hailey back on Prozac. We had a thunderstorm one night and she peed on one of the dog beds, but no other destruction. We will call this a win.
To help her on Canada, because we knew there would be fireworks, and then Saturday night as we actually got to go out and we knew there would be fireworks, we also gave her a Valium. In both cases, there was no destruction.
We are not loving our girl on the Prozac. She isn't eating as much and she is extra sleepy. We can't tell if it her adjusting, her also having Valium or something else. We are going to give her another week or so, without Valium and just the Prozac, to see if she is more herself. If not we will be talking to our vet.
Because she is in human drugs, this cracks me up.
Warning: This story makes reference to abuse.
On what normally be a day to celebrate, we are taking this Canada Day to reflect on the treatment of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. In the past month, 215 and 751 unmarked graves of children have been found at 2 of the 139 former residential schools in Canada. (Yesterday another 182 unmarked graves were found at a 3rd site).
From 1894-1996 all across Canada, at least 150 000 Indigenous children, aged 4-16, were forcibly taken from their families to live in church run schools. Here they suffered terrible abuse and neglect. This was done to prevent the parents from rebelling against the government and to take the Indigenous culture from the children. It is estimated 40-60% of the children died while in government/church care, however, due to lack of existing records, we will likely never know exactly how many.
The residential school system reflects just one of the Canadian government's policies of genocide. All these policies have caused generational trauma, social issues and extreme racism in the country I love. They make my heart hurt.
Instead of fireworks, we will be lighting a candle and thinking of the horrors those poor children and their families were forced to endure. We will be looking for guidance from the Indigenous communities on how we move forward as a country.
Every child matters.
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Here is a LINK to Cree artist Kent Monkman's work The Scream (2017), that captures the removal of Indigenous children from their families. He is an amazing artist whose works capture colonialization in a profound way. You can learn more about him HERE.
