Still No School and More Trimming of the Ivy

Last week I wrote about enlisting the help of Megan and Alun with trimming the ivy on our chimney, since they are out of school due to a teachers’ strike.  Today is Day 9, with no end in sight.  Yesterday, the Peel District School Board (PDSB) asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board to declare the strike illegal.

A couple years ago the Ontario government brought in legislation to change the way teachers’ unions bargain with their employers, which created a situation where some issues are bargained centrally with the Ministry of Education and some issues are bargained locally, with the school boards.  The negotiations are concurrent.  It was supposed to make labour disruption less likely.  I wondered at the time how that would possibly work.  The answer is that it doesn’t.

The PDSB, claims that the issues for which the union is striking need to be resolved centrally and that the union is acting illegally by striking in only three boards:  Peel, Rainbow and Durham.  We await a ruling.

Meanwhile we made progress with the ivy.  It’s amazing how strongly it clings to the brick and grows into the spaces between the bricks.

Here is what it looked like at the end of our third session on Tuesday.

We spent another half hour today.

Alun managed to smash out water metre reader off the wall while hitting the ivy with a sledgehammer and also cut the wire.  Given the way he generally behaves when helping with chores (truculently) I have to wonder if it was on purpose to get out of future chores.  I keep telling him that won’t work.

I called the number on the box and reported that we had had a “gardening accident”.  Someone will come out on Tuesday to fix it.  Megan suggested that we should take really long showers until it is fixed.

Today we cleaned up all the branches and dead leaves at the base.

So far this week we have filled four garbage cans and six bags with debris.

Owen and I have started walking Bailey in the mornings as well as after school.   It was a beautiful morning for a walk.

I love how loyal Bailey is. Here he is watching the kids going into the school.

When I told him it was time to go, he sat down and refused to leave without Owen.

I tugged on the leash until he got up and started walking reluctantly, sitting down and looking back several more times until we got off school property. We walked into the valley and then up a shortcut through the woods to the ball diamond where we played catch for a while.

He then led me back to the school again to look for Owen.

Trystan is in Ottawa on a Grade 8 trip.  Fortunately, the labour action by the elementary teachers just affects administrative tasks so far and his trip was unaffected.