John Oliver Smith
Bio
Baby, son, brother, child, student, collector, farmer, photographer, player, uncle, coach, husband, student, writer, teacher, father, science guy, fan, coach, grandfather, comedian, traveler, chef, story-teller, driver, regular guy!!
Achievements (1)
Stories (117/0)
About A Pig
While many farms worldwide have one to thousands of pigs, not many people know a lot about these animals. I grew up on a pig farm and during the first 18 years of my life, I interacted with them on a daily basis. I learned what they liked and what they didn’t like. I learned their habits and how they communicated. On graduating from high-school, I left the farm briefly to attend the University of Saskatchewan. After becoming disenchanted with university life, I returned to the farm and became involved with the business of raising pigs. Our hog operation was a ‘Farrow to Finish’ business. We kept approximately 40 to 50 breeding sows throughout the year with about one third of them nursing at any one time. We sold anywhere from 300 to 600 market hogs per year and the returns on those sales provided a cash flow that allowed me to do most of the things I ever wanted to do in my life. On our farm, the care of the pigs was largely manual and very labor intensive for most of the years I partnered in the business. A summer tornado in 1976, destroyed parts of the various barns. We were forced to rebuild, so segments of the operation did become automated at that point, but we were still able to maintain a fairly close relationship with our animals even though some of the manual aspects were reduced. During all of my many years working with pigs I collected many interesting and perhaps trivial facts about pigs that I learned through experience or that I read about or that other hog farmers shared with me at countless auction sales and agricultural symposiums. Below, I have compiled 30 of those points about pigs that will get you up to date on everything that you should know about them.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Petlife
Landing in China
Patti looked out the window for signs of something other than tall cement buildings and traffic jams but all she saw was grey. She saw people pulling carts piled high with heavy items of all sorts, and her deep fatigue took over. She worried perhaps that she, and her new husband of six weeks – John – had made a terrible mistake. They were on a bus, making its way through an endless Asian city that was to become their new home for a year – Wuhan, China.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Wander
Dee-Daw
Dear Linda, You may or may not know it, but you are my hero. You are the only remaining person on the planet that I have known for my entire life. That alone, constitutes a basis for being my hero. But I am not the only one in our family, or otherwise, who perceives you as a hero. You also have friends, neighbours, students and pets who justifiably worship you in that way.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Families
The Reading Game
Dear Friends, Greetings. I hope all of you are well. I apologize for not having kept in contact with some of you over the past few years. I know it has been a while in some cases. Just to update you on things that have happened in my life over the last few months / years – I am now back from my 8-year teaching gig in China. My wife, Patti and I have been living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for the last two years. The last time we traveled any further than our home town was in January and February of 2020 when we went to Ecuador and Peru. Since the onslaught of Covid, we have stayed pretty much put, at home. Patti has been doing some writing and has put together a band and continues to work passionately at her music. She usually rehearses once a week for a few hours. The cold weather and the recent Omicron Wave of Covid has slowed that down as well.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Motivation
Take Me Out to the ("__") Game
If I can bring myself to watch a sports movie (or any movie for that matter) more than once, then it is probably excellent, in my opinion. In the account that follows, I have selected 21 of my favorite movies, in the Sports genre. (Number ‘21’ was my uniform number when I played senior hockey back in my younger days. ) Anyway, the movies in my present list have been selected on the basis of how good the story is, how good the acting is, how believable the movie is, and how well the movie has been filmed. I love good cinematography and brilliant and novel scenery. If the acting is stellar and the story line is compelling and believable, then the movie itself will likely be one of my favorites.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Cleats
Hometown Teacher Heroes
Dear Teachers, Greetings, and congratulations. I am finally getting around to telling all of you, what a great job you did with me as your student. I made a few mistakes in my life – some of them big – but by and large, I made out alright. I could never have done it without your help. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, what heroes you were to me during the time that I was with you in school. In fact, you did such an impressive job, that I became a teacher myself, hoping to pass on all I learned from you, to students here and there around the entire planet.
By John Oliver Smith2 years ago in Education