This month I’m celebrating twelve years of participating in the Photo Blogging Challenge. That means host PJ, over at A ‘lil HooHaa, has organized 144 monthly themes, linkups, and otherwise encouraged participation in this low-stress monthly challenge. Thanks, PJ! I look forward to the next milestone. I also appreciate every PBC participant. It’s been a privilege to read your posts each month over the past 12 years, watching your children/grandchildren grow up, vicariously enjoying all kinds of vacations and learning more about your little corners of the world. Thank you! 🙂

I confess I’ve neglected photography over the past few months while I focused on documenting memories from our 2024 vacations in a long series of blog posts about Scotland and Greenland. So I had a fairly limited number of photographs to choose from this month. But that’s going to change starting in April. Why? Because on March 31 I published my last blog post about our Gems of West Greenland expedition cruise. Yes, I’m finally caught up!!! And – entirely coincidentally – that was my twelfth blog post published in March. All of which explains why there’s a photograph of a March calendar as the featured image at the top of this post.

Now for this month’s five:

1. A Dozen and a Half

From what I’ve read, the reason eggs are generally sold by the dozen has its roots in the UK, where – way back when – you could buy an egg for a penny. And since 12 pennies made up a shilling, it just made sense to sell eggs in lots of 12 for one shilling. Over my decades of grocery shopping, I’ve seen eggs sold in half dozens, dozens, a dozen and a half, and flats of 30. We generally buy eggs in cartons of 18. They’re from a local Hutterite community and we pay about C$9/carton (US$6.25/carton). Not only are we supporting local agriculture/farming, these have great flavor compared to most grocery store eggs.

2. Almost Noon

Twice this month I’ve walked to the library at midday on Sunday. My mission? To pick up a book I’d requested that was waiting for me on the “holds” shelf. Both times I arrived a few minutes early. It’s great to see so many people, including lots of families, waiting for the library to open at noon on Sundays.

3. 12:12 pm on March 12

This is one of two photos I actually planned for this month. Not the specific content, but the time. It’s been more than a decade since I last participated in “12 of 12” (i.e. take and share 12 photos on the 12th day of the month). Taking a photo at 12:12 pm on March 12th is a little riff on that long abandoned practice. I was just sitting down for lunch at that time.

This is a typical lunch for me – a HUGE salad with at least a couple types of protein. Eating a plate of cruciferous, greens and other vegetables at lunch has been a habit since 2019, after I read “How Not to Die” by Dr Michael Gregor. My main takeaway from my first reading of the book has been incorporating his “Daily Dozen” into my lifestyle. The Coles notes version is this: eat mostly unprocessed plant foods, and when you eat animal foods, eat unprocessed animal foods (ie not sausages and bacon). And exercise every day! Writing this, I think it’s time to read the book again, to see which of my habits need a “tune up!”

4. Twelve Kilometers

Speaking of exercise, here’s a photo of the control panel on our rowing machine. This is the second photo I planned this month. I generally row 10 km in, but decided that I’d do 12 km (7.5 miles) one day and take a photo of that milestone. On the right side of the frame is a picture of my little iPod nano, showing the audiobook I listened to during my row: Leviathan Wakes, by James S.A. Corey, book 1 in The Expanse series of science fiction novels. I first mentioned my purple iPod nano in a PBC post way back in January 2014.

5. Half of Twelve One Day, the Other Half the Next

March usually brings more snow to the Bow Valley than any other winter month. And we need snow. With glaciers shrinking each year, we’re becoming increasingly reliant on snow pack as the source for our rivers. We had a good dump of snow the last week of March, with 6 cm falling overnight Thursday and another 7-8 cm overnight Friday. This photo was taken on our driveway before I shoveled it clear.

And there you have it – a half dozen photos of something to do with the number 12. To see how other participants celebrated the 12th anniversary of this Photo Blogging Challenge, check out the linkup at the bottom of host PJ’s post.

And please, consider joining us for lucky number 13! 😉 All you need each month = 5 photos + some kind of blogging platform. The theme for April is Sidewalks and Roads.