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 found an interesting article looking at the psychological consequences of spending time in nature—doing something as simple as a short walk. The book Last Child in the Woods discussed similar research in places. Adding my favourite pic of the boys on a nature walk last fall:

The boys headed out to play in the snow right after breakfast. I guess both were still hungry as the first thing they did was eat it:   They ran all over the yard, making tracks and listening to the snow squish underfoot (very different than the dry powdery snow we get in winter): And then, no surprise, out came the dinosaurs. The boys fashioned asteroids and kept wiping the dinos out. :-) While they were playing, I called around to let everyone know soccer is...

…this afternoon—Earth Day—I was struck by the irony of the images outside my window. From last night’s 20C / 70F weather for soccer, to this. Here’s how the day unfolded. 12:30 pm, snow begins 2:00 pm 3:30 pm 5:00 pm So what’s normal here? Well, according to Environment Canada, our normal high for today is 13C / 55F. Not much different than Toronto and Vancouver’s average highs of 14C, or Winnipeg’s of 12C. What is different is the extremes in the weather here:...

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...

Gareth had his second Rainforest Safari class today, and again he came home excited and talking about it. He showed us this cute art project they did: they trace their arm for the tree trunk, and make handprints for the leaves. They then decorated their tree with their choice of animal stickers. I like how Gareth has the sloth hanging upside down, as they do in life. They also did some painting, played games, the teacher read them a story at the end, etc. And the highlight of the day was getting to try a food...

Just a lovely warm spring day today, so the boys headed out to the backyard in shorts and T-shirts. Gareth called to us through the window a few minutes later: “I’m hot! Can we set up the sprinkler to run through?” This gave Jim and I a good chuckle because—as you’ll see in the pictures—we’ve still got a few snowbanks in the yard! We told Gareth to take his shirt off instead if he was hot. Here’s some highlights of their play (hover over the pictures for details): ...

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...

We started buying Toobs when Daegan was about 18 months old—past the sticking everything in his mouth phase—and they have been one of the best toys we have purchased. Both boys still play with them, in some capacity or other, virtually every day...more than 5 years later. The range of sets is very broad; click on ‘toobs’ and ‘mega toobs’ here to check them out. They are popular with both boys and girls, are an easy gift suggestion to relatives for Christmas and birthdays, and work well as prizes in party loot bags. I have also used them to stuff...

Daegan and Jim took a nature class yesterday, rather ironically entitled “Signs of Spring” (we’re suffering through the longest winter I recall in my 16 years in Calgary). It was held at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, for ages 6-12 with parent, and was well-attended. Daegan even met up with a boy, Alex, whom we had over to do homeschool activities from the Jr. Palaeontologist crate from Science Alberta last fall. The class began inside, with a discussion of spring, lifecycles (dragonfly, butterfly, frog…both Jim and I thought these topics more appropriate for a class of 3-6 year olds,...