As I usually do when planning a trip, I turned to geoaching as one source of information. As destinations go, Nassau has a very manageable number of geocaches to find. As I'm writing this, there are less than a dozen in the downtown area. Using the locations of the geocaches as a starting point, layering …
I noticed earlier this week that countdown calendars are popping up everywhere: 15 days until Black Friday; 42 days before Christmas; 49 days until 2016... As the days, hours, minutes and seconds wind down, the pressure of holiday busy-ness spins up. Add school concerts, recitals, parties, shopping, baking, juggling finances, and other extras to an …
Each year at 11 o'clock on the morning of November 11, Canadians observe a moment of silence to honour our veterans. In that quiet moment, we strive to imagine their faces, their lives...and their deaths...and what it must be like for their families left at home. Thanks to the more than 2.3 million Canadians who have served …
I had mixed thoughts about urban poling before I gave it a try. The main benefit for someone like me is that using poles while walking significantly UPs the exercise intensity. And while I'm not willing to invest in a pair of urban poles just yet, I am open to the idea. So how will I finally make my decision? I'm planning to borrow a pair for a few weeks, to see how urban poles fit with my long-standing habit of turning every walk into a photo walk. An extended trial will give me a good feel for how easy it is to keep track of 3 things (2 poles + 1 camera) or whether I'd be happy shifting the focus of my walks away from photography to more of an aerobic exercise.
Despite the challenges posed by deer, squirrels and jackrabbits, I continue to invest considerable time, energy and money into our yard each year. Over the past 5 years, my pre-planting plans focus on two things: 1) deer/rabbit/squirrel resistance; and 2) attracting and supporting pollinators. While the first objective continues to be a challenge, we're enjoying considerable success on the second front, to the point that most summers we end up tolerating some sort of wasp nest in our yard. Some days in the peak of summer I count 5 or 6 different kinds of bees and wasps staying busy amongst the flowers. Even at the end of October, a couple of honey bees were hard at work in our Cosmos.