It’s been a very warm and sunny weekend—until today. (Which is why I haven’t been blogging; all my spare time has been being spent in the garden). With the cold wet weather today, several migrating birds are hunkering down where they can—we saw the usual suspects in the yard this morning (chickadees, house finches, robins et al) as well as white-crowned sparrow, least flycatcher and the absolute highlight, western tanagers! These birds spend most of the year in the tropics, making the long journey north for the breeding season. And they are not common backyard birds at all, but we’ve...

  Was reading this blog and thought I’d join in the fun. Instructions: "Bold the states or provinces you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state/province you're in now..." Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire /...

    Jim and I watched this movie over the weekend and found it informative and engaging. I have certainly heard lots of bad press about Wal-Mart in terms of how they treat (and pay) their employees, which this movie discussed in part. They interviewed many former employees and managers, the latter confessing how they were trained to get folks to work unpaid overtime, and many other unethical practices. But the movie also looked at the negative impact getting a Wal-Mart has had on many smaller towns in the US, their environmental record, the crime in their parking...

We took the boys to the bird sanctuary Sunday afternoon for some free displays and activities in honour of Earth Day later this week. We attended a presentation on composting (in which Daegan was the only child and the most vocal and engaged participant!), met a Great Horned Owl, listened to a storytime about animals and the earth, chatted with folks from the Calgary Gardening club, etc. This last was quite amusing, as while we were talking Daegan asked if he could have a nibble on some of the fresh herbs in the display pot. “Can’t get him to eat...

We’ve been enjoying warm weather this week (actually, its been only a couple degrees above what we should be this time of year, but it’s been such a long, cold, snowy winter it feels tropical!), so I took a walk through the backyard today to see what I could see. There’s greening grass, bulbs shoots pushing through the soil in several places, and new green growth at the base of the hollyhocks and grape hyacinths. Each morning this week we’ve been treated to a pair of chickadees making themselves at home in the bird house we’ve put up in our...

Here’s what I read last month. Hover over image for title and author. And as always, if you have suggestions for me for further reads, please leave them in the comments. A collection of ‘rants’ from the Rick Mercer Report (a weekly, Canadian faux news show, similar to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart…yet different). Watching the rants on TV is far better, IMHO, though I did enjoy reading his preface about how the show has enabled him to travel all over Canada and meet all sorts of people—and how he gets annoyed with folks from...

Here’s what I read last month. As you can see, I read quite widely—fiction and non-fiction, so if you have a suggestion for me please leave it in the comments. I am always looking to add to my already unwieldy reading list! :-) Hover over image for title and author. A fascinating autobiography from a woman who spent part of her childhood virtually unschooled in the Australian outback, then attended well-to-do schools in Sydney after her father died. She eventually went to university and became a professor, and was the first female president of Smith’s College....

Over the weekend Jim and I watched the Michael Moore documentary, Sicko. It was both fascinating and very, very disturbing. I can now see more clearly the opposition to “two-tier” healthcare in Canada (privatization of some procedures), and have come to the conclusion that medical care (and health insurance) cannot ethically be run for profit. The Hippocratic oath—first, do no harm—seems to me incompatible with trying to maximize profits for shareholders of HMOs. Asking someone in dire medical need to switch to an approved hospital, or not treating until proof of payment (or demanding pre-payment), or denying necessary medical treatment,...

Did your family participate? Here’s what we did for Earth hour this year: - Read Common Ground by Molly Bang shortly before lights out - Munched on homemade apple crisp (still warm from the oven) and soy ice cream, with tea to drink, by candlelight - Freaked Gareth out with Daegan merely mentioning ‘spooky stories”. I tried to be funny by talking about 4 ghosts—a Mommy, Daddy and two little boy ghosts who were sitting around their table drinking tea and having ice cream and apple crisp. Gareth laughed at first, but then got freaked...

I’ve been keeping a list for a while now of books I’ve read so far this year—we’re all bibliophiles in this house! Here’s my thoughts on what I read in January (hover over image for title and author): A very interesting read, even for a near vegan. He looks at where our food comes from over the course of four meals: a typical fast food burger-and-fries meal, an organic meal, a locally raised meal, and a hunted/foraged meal. I learned a lot from this book: the first meal and how much of it is ultimately traced...