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sa4 wednesday january 26 1983 woods and wildlife beauty inflight by ron reid federation of ontario naturalists your garden may be silent and buried in white no w but next spring will once again bring out the green and the colourful splashes of blos- soms mr robert mitchell from the us fish and wildlife service has recently come up with some prac tical suggestions on how you can make next summers garden an even more idyllic place by creating plantings that will attract butterf lies to your yard most of us remember that the monarch butterfly is attracted to milkweed but thats hardly a popu lar addition to your garden howev er mitchell points out that migrat ing monarchs in the fall are espe cially fond of asters a small black butterfly with white and orange spots known as the baltimore is found only in association with a wet land plant called turtlehead com mon plants such as queen annes lace and parsley are eaten by the black swallowtail a more unusual diet is that of the cabbage butterf ly who delights in spider plants many of the common trees are also attractive to butterflies while they are in bloom the early lilacs attract emerging tiger swallow tails and then black and yellow beauties can be found later in the season associating with tulip trees wild cheeries and ash the viceroy butterfly with striking vshaped white slashes on its back often uses either black willow or pussy willow wild cherry supports the large cec- ropia moth while the fragile green lune moth prefers hickory walnut or sweetgum many plants are attractive to a wide variety of moths and butterf lies and can be planted easily among these are shrubs such as blueberry sumac butterfly bush and sweet pepperbush as well as annuals such as larkspur single petunias 4 oclocks marigold and zinnia so when you search through the seed catalogue this winter keep in mind the ability of some flowers to serve as feeding stations for our colourful winged insects to doubly enhance the beauty of your yard now princess fuzzbottcim let me tell you all about having kittens 30 you wont be afraid when it starts to happen news item introduce sex education into school system r ht ribune james thomas i fi editor established 1888 barhy w wallace pubisher joe anderson advertising manager edrroftlal dept jim holt jim irving display advertising dept bryan armstrong classified advertisingcirculation joan marshman office manager doreen deacon national sales representative metro land corporate sates 4931300 published every wednesday at 54 mam st stouffvilte ont tel 6402 1 00 single copies 35c subscrip tions 15 00 per year in canada 45 00 elsewhere member of canadian community newspapers assoaa tion ontario weekly newspapers association ontario press council and suburban newspaper of america second class mail registration number 0896 the stouffviitetnbune is one of the metroland pnnting publishing ltd groupof suburban newspapers which includes acton free press aiaxwruibypicfcenng news advertiser aurora banner the bolton enterprise brampton guardian the burlington post the burlington weekend post the etobicoke advertiser guardian the georgetown independent the hamilton wentwonh postthe marvhamthomrull economist and son the milton champion the mississauga news the newmarket era the north york mirror oavviile beaver oakville friday beaver oshawa this week oshawa this weekend the richmond hilithomhtti liberal the scarborough mirror the woodbndge vaughan news rroaming around- faces look familiar by jim thomas- 6402100 editorials school systems bridging the gap this spring the board of educations new family life and sex education course will be introduced to elementary and secondary school students in whitchurchstouffville and elsewhere across york region most parents seem to feel the instruc tion obviously lacking in many homes is long overdue and we agree however its effectiveness can be ascertained only through personal observations within a classroom setting a year from now teachers and parents alike will all be a little wiser as to the success of the program certainly if there were any fears con cerning the content of the course these were allayed at the public meeting in orchard park school wednesday night principal john hincks provided such an indepth explanation of the program there was little left to be said or asked mr hincks had obviously done his homework and it showed his grass roots approach to the subject seemed to satisfy just about everyone if some adults view this trend towards sex education in schools with alarm its all because such instruction is now re quired by the ministry of education and by the board this bothers many people they detest being told what to do unfortunately when such isnt the case things of necessity seldom get done also those children now attending our elementary and secondary schools are for the most part products of parents who lacked the same education the sys tem now plans to impart this tends to raise questions like it wasnt neces sary in my day so why is it needed now would that we could turn back the clock regardless at this stage no ones in a position to assess the success or failure of the program we must give it a chance twelve months from now well be able to judge it better im continually confusing faces and names and for a weekly newspaper edi tor this is an unpardonable sin for im supposed to know everyone everyone ive ever met believe me i don in fact attaching a name to a face is a weakness i cant overcome its embarrassing especially in a crowd by the end of a social evening my shins are black and blue from well- placed kicks administered by wife jean and for good reason for im continually calling some guy jack when it should be joe and some girl mary when it should be sarah after twentytwo years of marital togetherness shes wise to my ways be fore we enter a room whether they be her friends or mine she issues a warn ing if youre not absolutely sure dont call them anything better to be safe than sorry and generally speaking her advice works well when in doubt leave them out however seldom an occasion goes by that i dont waver from this preset path much to my regret for me at least sticking ones foot in ones mouth is no physical impossibility ive had plenty of practice it happens even while driving down the road hey theres sam smith ill say blasting the horn at an unsuspecting motorist just ahead it is not jean replies as the disturbed driver shakes his fist in disgust its the same when the kids are along who you wavin at marylynn will ask dont you know thats wendy across the street i answer what she responds between giggles i know mrs thompson and she sure doesnt look like that whoops goofed again when folks come in to renew their sub scriptions im continually put on the spot many of them tell how theyve been faithful subscribers for over fifty years and their parents before that they talk about the weather the good old days the town and the paper but never once do they give a hint as to who they are or where they live when the time comes to write out a receipt im stuck so i tact fully ask whats the proper spelling for your first name they invariably reply john john then i ask h6w do you spell your last name to which they will likely answer jones jones thus enlightened i respond why sure i know you your farms up the sixth concession near the vandorf road to which hes just as apt to rep ly nope im on the fifth concession near the bloomington road sometimes i just cant win however its selfsatisfying to know others occasionally make the same mis take like saturday afternoon i attended a golden wedding anniversary in the community centre at victoria square my purpose for being there was to take a photo of the honored couple however as i waited in the reception hall i heard the strains of beautiful music coming from another part of the building so i ven tured in and took a seat minutes later the master of cere monies rose to announce the arrival of the ridings member of parliament and to my surprise i saw him staring in my direction i began shaking my head furiously in dicating i was neither sinclair stevens nor bill hodgson then you must be a representative he continued again i indicated no at this point i fully expected the mc to question what i was doing therein the first place but he declined to go that far since i wasnt carrying my camera most concluded id just come in out of the cold so you see others can get hung up on the same identification problem thats plagued me all my life the solution as i see it is for everyone to wear a name tag like a dog window on wildlife- nat lires papermakers byartbriggsjude vote is meaningless the concerned citizens committee is at last word planning to place the land fill site issue to a vote of the people the ballot will be published in the tribune of feb 2 this newspaper stands opposed to a negotiated settlement we favor a deci sion by the assessment appeal board and hopefully the closing of the dump june 30 1983 as ordered by the environ ment ministry last april r how the ballot will be worded is a mat ter of conjecture however at this point in time we dont feel it matters the council seems determined that a negoti ated settlement on town terms is the right way to go even without citizens support its unlikely theyll change their stand so what will the plebiscite prove it will only widen the rift between the citizens group and council and leave the environment ministry laughing whitchurchstouffville needs no more egg on its face weve been smeared i enough now from coast to coast pit ting the people against a council thats resolute in its purpose is no way to solve our problems i among the many features of the win terwooded landscape none stands out more noticeably than the large gray nests of the wasp family and because of their size and placement along the forest edge and borders they can often be spot ted from a good distance away some seasons they seem to be almost every where you roam oldtimers often re marked that the distance these struc tures were fastened above the ground gave a clue as to what depth of snow we could expect that winter hopefully this is just an old wives tale because most of the wasp nests ive noticed this year are up in the trees somewhere in the neigh borhood of 30 feet by far the greatest majority of these oblong fixtures were fashioned by vespa maculta commonly called the bald- faced hornet and these equally testy yellowjackets were actually the first and original papermakers long before the ancient egyptians were fabricating a rough web of papyrus fibres these in sects were already collecting bits of weatherworn wood and chewing them into a pulp they mixed with their saliva the resulting products used to build their nests is surprisingly similar to somcof the cheaper packing material used in todays industries but their dis covery of papermaking great that it was was almost equalled when they found out that the hexogonalshapcd cell allowed the maximum use of limited space thus their food and brood cham bers like those of the honey bee could be enclosed in a much smaller structure than if they had used any other shape for those individual cells whenever we come in close contact with one of these big gray wasp nests even in winter a slight feeling of apprehension usually comes over us maybe its triggered by some longpast event associated with these belligerent bugs or even fostered by some oft- repeated tale but whatever the reason the feeling sometimes persists really though there should be no fear of attack even in a winter as mild as this one for with the approach of cold weather all members of the colony die except a few fertilized females or queens which hibernate in the litter on the ground the nest then is empty the first time i remember having a close encounter with an active nest of these hornets was when i discovered one as i moved a long fruit ladder up among the branches of an old plum tree some thing akin to the sharp tine of a hay fork hit me on the side of the neck and i drop ped off the ladder like id just been shot and ivs a good thing i retreated as fast as i did because the angry horde raised another welt on my hand before i could vacate the area on another occasion john skjeberdis our lithuanian hired man inadvertantly spiked a paper nest of yellowjackets as we picked up loose hay with the horse and dray i finally stopped the horse one field away but john carried on well into the next pas ture before he felt he was safe from his stinging antagonists but basically the various members of the wasp and hornet family are higly beneficial they devour tremendous numbers of harmful flies grasshoppers and caterpillars including the pupae of the screw worm fly that sucks the blood from nestling bluebirds they also are very important pollinators of various plants and trees in fact some field crops such as red clover could not suc cessfully reproduce if it were not for the presence of wasps and wild bees during the flowering season so unless these winged stingers build a nest too close to house and home or interfere with your outdoor activity leave them bee